Monroe mom in fight to stay in country -- themorningcall.com

Monroe mom in fight to stay in country -- themorningcall.com
And now Rukie is in prison, facing the prospect of returning to Bulgaria. ... Education Guide · Lehigh Valley Living · Living in the Lehigh Valley ...
Monroe mom in fight to stay in country -- themorningcall.com
Search themorningcall.com Web enhanced by Login or register Subscribe Now! startChangeSocialBookmarkingBG(); Print Reprints Post comment Text size: Rukie Paputchi is a taxpayer. citizen, although it's not for lack of trying, according to her husband and her attorney. Bulgaria.According to the family lawyer, mistakes include applications that went unreviewed, important information meant for the Paputchis sent to a wrong address, and government officials and attorneys missing that she was eligible for residency status under a 1997 law. asked to voluntarily leave the country by January 2003. second child and filed for a reconsideration. ouses some immigration detainees -- ever since.According to her husband, Zekri ''Zack'' Paputchi, their status in this country has virtually been on appeal since they arrived from Bulgaria in the 1990s, although he has been granted asylum.''We want our life back,'' said Zack, sitting in a booth at Old Mill Pizzeria, the family's restaurant. resenting Rukie, said the Paputchis don't see this as the end. senators -- Arlen Specter and Robert Casey Jr. senator's office ''will continue to work with the Paputchis and ICE to see what resolution can be obtained.'' Casey spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said he is aware of the case, but declined to comment further, citing privacy issues.The Paputchis are part of an enclave of a few dozen Bulgarian families living in the Slate Belt and the Poconos. Bulgaria, they faced persecution before they left and will do so again if they went back.In 1984, Bulgaria forced Zack -- along with many other Muslims in the country -- to change his name to something more European. city bus, the police are there, you're speaking Turkish, they throw you off the bus or they beat you.''Mehmet ''Mike'' Zimmer, who came to the United States from Bulgaria in the 1970s, said he invited many relatives -- including Zack, his nephew -- to America in the early 1990s. Township, said he worried post-Communist Bulgaria will split apart the way Yugoslavia did, leaving his Muslim relatives in danger. rise to the high level required to constitute 'persecution,''' the court ruling said. Bulgaria.That is the experience of a lot of immigrants, said Amy Gottleib of the American Friends Service Committee, a human rights group. seek asylum in America because of conditions back home. posed.''Yet you had people who still felt persecuted,'' Gottleib said. assed a law in 1997 known as NACARA -- the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act. Nicaraguan refugees, it also applies to people from certain Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria. Resource Center in San Francisco, and a NACARA expert.Silverman said it's rare today to find Eastern European immigrants still trying to get NACARA status. cases he deals with, he said, involve immigrants from Asia or Latin America.Under NACARA, anyone who entered the United States from the countries in question before the end of 1990 and asked for asylum before the end of 1991 is eligible for benefits. ask for asylum until 1993 -- it was finally granted in 1997 -- she's covered by her husband, who applied in 1990.The problem is that the Paputchis weren't notified by the government that Rukie was eligible for NACARA until it was too late, because a letter from the government went to the wrong address. case, something that has yet to happen.Another mistake, Murphy argues, is that the government didn't join Zack and Rukie's cases together, because they were both eligible under NACARA. lise, 5 -- to visit their mother in jail.