KAILUA-KONA — Not long after she married Kona coffee farmer Andres Magana Ortiz, Brenda Reynolds filed her petition to put her new husband on track for permanent residency in the United States.
It’s a process that takes about 150 days for approval, according to historical averages released by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, but more than 14 months after Reynolds’ petition was received in March 2016, Magana’s attorney, James Stanton, said that petition still hasn’t gotten a response from the feds.
Magana, meanwhile, is expected to report to the Honolulu office of U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service this morning.
“Whether or not they’re going to deport him, whether or not we’re going to have help from the Hawaii delegates, we don’t know,” Reynolds said in an interview from Honolulu on Tuesday.
Hawaii’s congressional delegation is pursuing legislative options that would let Magana remain in the United States, including a letter to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the introduction of a bill to help Magana, 43.
Magana, a citizen and national of Mexico, arrived in the United States at the age of 15 in 1989. He came into the country without a visa and assisted by smugglers.
“He came to work, came for a new life” Stanton said. “He was just a young, young boy, 15 years old when he came.”
After crossing the border by foot into California, the man lived there with an uncle for several years, Reynolds said. Around 1997-98, Magana made his way to Hawaii — having been told there were jobs here — with his child and the child’s mother.
Barely speaking English when he arrived, he started work in the fields of Kona.
“Then he started to build his life,” Reynolds said.
By day, Magana worked on a variety of coffee farms. At night, the man took classes in Honaunau to learn English. Then in the early 2000s, Magana started “AM Coffee,” which was later renamed “El Molinito Farm.”
“For him, he just continued work in the coffee fields and helping farmers,” his wife said. “People would have problems with their coffee trees and they didn’t know what to do and (a friend) would say ‘Call Andres,’ and then Andres would go over and take care of it.”
Applying for documentation
Magana’s efforts to get documented immigration status in the country isn’t for lack of trying, his lawyer contends.
“He’s been trying for years to get his situation straightened out,” said Stanton.
Reynolds said authorities learned of her husband’s immigration status in 2009 or 2010, when he was coming from Kona to Honolulu to take his younger daughter to the dentist.
At the airport, Reynolds said, he was stopped and detained with the mother of his children.
During removal proceedings in 2011, an immigration court determined that Magana could be removed from the country, according to federal court documents.
Court records show that Magana asked for a “voluntary departure” on the grounds that his deportation would cause hardship to his family, who depend on him for support. The immigration judge denied that request, a decision that was later upheld in 2014 by the Board of Immigration appeals.
But in 2013, Magana received a one-year employment authorization to run through mid-November 2014. He later received a stay of deportation in 2014 to allow him to stay one more year.
In January 2016, while a second application for a stay of deportation was pending, Magana married Reynolds, whom he had met in 2012, according to the documents.
But when the presidential administration changed at the beginning of this year, so did the enforcement attitude, Stanton said.
Court documents said that a third stay application filed in November 2016 was denied this past March and a fourth application filed in April was denied in just two weeks.
“All we were asking for was more time to complete processing of the I-130 petition — which had been sitting at the Immigration Service for quite a while, about a year — and for the daughter to turn 21,” Stanton said.
Twenty-one is the minimum age at which a person can file an I-130 petition for a parent or sibling. In this case, Magana’s daughter, who will turn 21 in August, would be able to file a petition on behalf of her father.
Stanton said if the I-130 were to go through, his client could apply for a waiver, return to Mexico and then apply for a visa to let him come back.
Magana, Stanton said, knows he will need to return to Mexico as part of the path to residency and is willing to do so at his expense, but the I-130 needs to be approved first so he can pursue a waiver of the 10-year bar on re-entry for unlawful presence.
‘It was just sitting there’
But 14 months after Reynolds’ application was received, she’s still waiting for an answer.
“It was just sitting there beyond normal processing time,” Stanton said of the petition, adding that a typical time is closer to five months.
A spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services pointed to agency historical averages that said processing for I-130 is around 150 days — roughly five months — but also said the processing time “depends on a number of factors,” making it difficult to give a time frame.
“Each petition is adjudicated on a case by case basis in which the totality of the case and evidence is taken into consideration,” Claire K. Nicholson said in an email to West Hawaii Today. “One example of something that may cause a delay is if someone doesn’t submit the proper evidence or paperwork, this may cause a delay since USCIS would need to request more information from the petitioner.”
Stanton said he could only speculate as to the rationale behind the delay.
“I don’t really know why,” he said. “I have some ideas, but it’s beyond normal processing time.”
Lawmakers push for stay
At this point, Stanton said, the best case scenario is intervention from Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, who could pause the removal.
“He has the power to do so and the discretion,” Stanton said. “And there’s really no reason why he shouldn’t give this family more time to remain here so that Mr. Magana will be able to come back with a green card.”
The state’s congressional delegation is pushing Kelly to do just that. All four of the state’s federal lawmakers this week signed a letter to Kelly advocating for a stay.
That’s not the only legislative avenue being pursued; Rep. Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday introduced a bill that would change the man’s legal status and make him eligible for legal, permanent residence in the United States, according to a statement from the representative.
And in the meantime, his family can just hope for the best.
“It’s scary,” Reynolds said. “But, you know, all we can do is just hope and pray that it turns up on our behalf.”
Wide reaching impact
Magana’s deportation could have drastic consequences for not just his family, said his attorney and wife, but for others who depend on him.
In addition to helping his children and their mother with rent and living expenses, he’s also supporting himself and Reynolds, his wife said. Court documents also state that Magana is also financing his oldest daughter’s education at the University of Hawaii at Hilo and “will have no alternative but to withdraw from school if her father is deported and she must find employment to support herself.”
Magana is also closely involved with coffee farms aside from his own. Reynolds said her husband manages close to 20 other farms.
“A lot of them is elderly people too,” Reynolds added, noting one farmer who just lost her husband and another in her 90s.
Reynolds said “a lot of great people” have been sending in letters supporting her husband, including other coffee farmers, in a show of support from his community.
“We’re very, very happy about it,” she said of the support. “Andres, he had not realized how many people were behind him.”