Updated: Community support grows for David Chavez-Macias
Siobhan McAndrewDavid Chavez-Macias is still waiting.
Chavez-Macias, who is an undocumented immigrant from Aguascalientes, Mexico, has been living in sanctuary at a Reno church for four months.
With a final order of deportation, Chavez-Macias, who has lived in the United States for 30 years went to the church, fearful of being deported. It is rare that immigration officials physically remove a person from a church or school.
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Over the last few months a grassroots group of religious leaders, Acting with Community Together Organizing Northern Nevada, has been trying to rally community support around this case. Commonly called ACTIONN, the group said 176 letters and a petition with more than 600 signatures showing support for Chavez-Macias will be delivered to ICE.
“We want officials to know this man has community support,” said J.D. Klippenstein, executive director of ACTIONN.
Klippenstein said Chavez-Macias and his family met at the church with staff from the office of U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev. Thursday.
Earlier this summer when asked about this situation, Cortez Masto said she and staff were keeping tabs on what was happening.
"We need immigration reform," Cortez Masto said.
Attorney hopes for a temporary stay of deportation
Chavez-Macias said being deported would be a death sentence.
The 52-year-old man has Marfan syndrome. The rare and sometimes fatal genetic syndrome causes the aorta, the blood vessel that carries blood to the heart, to grow.
Chavez-Macias has had heart surgery to replace the valve and likely will need to have that replaced.
He has been living at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in south Reno.
The church, which accepts members of all faiths, was the first in Nevada to provide physical sanctuary to undocumented immigrants when it gave sanctuary to a man in 2016. His deportation was later suspended.
“I want to go home,” said Chavez-Macias, who has worked as a landscaper. All four of his now adult children are graduates of Wooster High School.
"The first thing I would do is go back to work," he said
An attorney filed a Stay of Deportation for Chavez-Macias last week that was expected to be reviewed by local ICE agents this week. If immigration officials in Reno approve a temporary stay, it would then be forwarded to officials in Salt Lake City to make a decision.
“It’s really up to the immigration officials at this point,” said Dee Sull, a Las Vegas attorney with the American immigration Lawyers Association. She took this case pro bono.
She said the stay would allow Chavez-Macias reprieve, and the chance to go home, while she and others work on a permanent solution.
Sull said she is hoping to find legal flaws in the years of paperwork other attorneys filed as Chavez-Macias took the steps he thought he needed to become a legal citizen.
“He thought he was doing everything right,” said Sull, who is now questioning some of the previous filings done by attorneys for Chavez-Macias.
Community support grows
ACTIONN has organized pot lucks twice a month with Chavez-Macias. Community members eat dinner with Chavez-Macias and are encouraged to bring new guests to upcoming meetings.
“We really want the community to show support for this man and get this movement growing,” Klippenstein said. “We know tearing apart a family is not right.”
In June, immigration officials said that Chavez-Macias never had lawful status in the United States.
Western Regional Communications Spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Virginia Kice said he was ordered deported in absentia by an immigration judge with the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review in 1996.
Kice said he was not encountered by federal immigration authorities until March 2013 after he was arrested and discovered to be an immigration fugitive with an outstanding removal order.
Chavez-Macias said he was pulled over for making a right hand turn on a red light and that put him on the radar of immigration officials.
But Chavez-Macias said he continued to report to immigration officials and received a work permit so he believed he was doing what was necessary to stay legally in the United States.
“In the ensuing years, his case has been reviewed by judges with the Department of Justice’s Board of Immigration Appeals and by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, both of which declined to intervene,” Kice said.
Kice said ICE looks at all circumstances to determine the next step in an individual’s immigration case.
“Likewise, the agency also considers an alien’s family ties and any humanitarian issues that may be involved,” she said.
She said while the priority is to deport people who pose a threat to public safety, there are no exemptions for certain classes.
“All those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States,” she said.