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Salvadoran Rescued from Deportation Returns to Joyous Wedding in North Carolina

Episcopal News Service. May 26, 1999 [99-082]

E. T. Malone Jr., The Rev. Canon E. T. Malone Jr. is canon for publications and records for the Diocese of North Carolina.

(ENS) There was the usual last-minute anxiety before the wedding began. Somebody whispered that the bride was having trouble with a button. The four o'clock starting time passed, as the organist glanced from time to time toward the rear of the church, pulled out more sheet music, and kept on playing.

People shifted in their pews. Wedding congregations -- filled with guests who are often unfamiliar with Episcopal liturgy -- are always more varied than those who attend regular services, but this congregation was an absolute hodge-podge. Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, black and white, Anglos and Hispanics, the poor and the wealthy, the educated and the uneducated, the powerful and the powerless -- all had gathered on May 15 at the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to witness a wonderful event: the marriage of Daisy Diaz and Jose Federico Campos, her childhood sweetheart and father of her five children.

When the procession finally began, and the beaming bride appeared with flowers in her hair, there was more than the usual sigh of relief.

More than just a wedding, as joyful as that can be in itself, this was the outward and visible sign of an energetic community project that had reached a happy and successful conclusion.

Languishing "in exile"

For until little more than a month earlier Campos, in the United States since 1984 and a resident of Chapel Hill since 1987, had languished "in exile" in El Salvador where he was deported in October 1998 after being arrested when he showed up in Charlotte for what he thought would be a hearing on his permanent residency in the U.S.

Instead, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials pulled out an 11-year-old deportation order that had been issued when Campos, on the advice of a private immigration counselor, had failed to show up for a deportation hearing in 1988 in federal immigration court in Atlanta.

Campos and Diaz had fallen in love when he was a 17-year-old high school student and she was a 14-year-old in middle school. Fleeing the civil war in El Salvador, Campos crossed illegally into Texas and lived with his older brother Carlos. Three years later he applied for political asylum, but was denied. Told he could be sent home, he didn't attend the 1988 hearing.

When Diaz turned 17, Campos persuaded her to join him in the United States, which she did illegally. Here, they began to build a life and work toward becoming American citizens. They had five children, all American citizens, the most recent of whom were twin daughters born only nine months before Campos' deportation. But they were unable to marry because the change in status would have voided his residency application.

Campos became a carpenter and construction company supervisor in Chapel Hill and Diaz worked as a certified nursing assistant. Their three sons -- Hugo, Jorge, and Alonzo -- attend Seawell Elementary School and play in local soccer leagues. The oldest son, Hugo, suffers from a genetic disorder called neurofibromatosis, which can cause tumors and seizures. He must take expensive medication and every three months receive magnetic resonance imaging scans at the University of North Carolina Hospital. Health insurance at Campos' job covered part of the cost of Hugo's treatment.

Still, the INS would not consider hardship to children in reversing the deportation order, explained Molly McConnell, a Chapel of the Cross parishioner who became an indefatigable volunteer case worker for the family. "Molly almost burned up the church fax machine campaigning," said her rector, the Rev. Stephen Elkins-Williams, who preached the homily for the wedding.

She acted as coordinator for the task of finding effective legal representation for Campos and for organizing all the documents needed to apply for a waiver of deportation.

A community's support

Diaz, alone with the five children, received community support ranging from volunteer child care to cash donations for medical costs and legal fees. Jeff Weinstock, a Seawell School parent and chair of the school governance committee, acted as almost a surrogate father for the boys, taking them out for pizza or for soccer games.

The breakthrough came when it was discovered that Campos might be returned to the U.S. if it could be proved that his absence was a hardship to his mother, who by now was also living in North Carolina. "Well, this was no problem," said McConnell. Documentation was soon on its way and the visa officer at the U.S. embassy in El Salvador expedited a visa for Campos.

He stepped off the plane at the Raleigh-Durham Airport with nothing but the clothes on his back and the all-important green card, making him a permanent resident of the United States.

His sons cut the yellow ribbons that had been tied around the school marquee six months ago, and the entire school community staged a huge welcome-home celebration on Apr. 16, the day after Campos' return to the United States. Staff and parents there had rallied to help the family after his deportation. Food and banners filled the courtyard and portable stereos played "I'm Walking on Sunshine," "Celebrate," and "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

Immediately, Campos and Diaz wanted to schedule the wedding, and began talks with the Rev. Timothy Kimbrough, rector of Church of the Holy Family in Chapel Hill, where the boys had attended an afterschool program and began attending Sunday school. They plan to have their children baptized their in November. The wedding service was held at Chapel of the Cross to accommodate a larger crowd.

"Joyous and unique"

"What a joyous and unique occasion," said Elkins-Williams in his homily. "In celebrating weddings for seventeen years here, I do not remember one like this -- from whatever way you want to look at it!...We give God great thanks that we have seen this day and for the privilege of participating in this joyful union."

Kimbrough as celebrant read much of the ceremony in Spanish, and Ted Vaden, a parishioner at Chapel of the Cross and editor of the Chapel Hill News, which had published a series of articles and editorials on the case, read one of the lessons.

Their children joined Campos and Diaz at the altar for the final prayers. Alonzo brought the ring. Jorge served as his father's best man, and Hugo gave his mother away. The twins, Vannessa and Valeria, watched most of the ceremony from a front pew.

Still, everything is not settled. Recently, a new problem cropped up when the INS appealed a judge's ruling that Diaz herself be granted permanent residency -- raising the spectre of the mother of this family now possibly being deported. McConnell supervised the distribution of pre-printed postcards at the wedding addressed to INS officials, asking them to withdraw the appeal.

The next day she was on the telephone, methodically going down the list of people who had signed the guest register. "Hello, I'm sure you simply overlooked it, but you forgot to sign one of the postcards yesterday. Now, why don't you just...."

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