Immigrant on verge of second chance
One mistake threatened to wreck years of work toward American dream
Monday, August 12, 2002
By REBECCA COOK
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

Jose was born Sept. 29, 1966, in a remote village in El Salvador, without running water, electricity, schools or doctors. He came to America seeking the chance to work hard and make something of himself. He built a successful business and a loving family. But Jose made one mistake, and it threatened to destroy everything.

Jose first fell in love with the United States when he was 8, reading letters from his siblings up north to his illiterate parents. At 15, he sneaked across the border and traveled with his sister to Connell, Wash., to pick asparagus. Soon Jose got steadier work at a potato factory, each week putting $30 into savings. After five years, he qualified for an amnesty program and became a legal permanent resident. He bought a van with his savings and started his own business serving Mexican food to field workers from his mobile restaurant.

In 1997, he took classes and aced the test on American government. Soon after he got a letter from the Immigration and Naturalization Service inviting him to Yakima for an interview. However, the Yakima meeting was a sting to catch criminal immigrants. Jose's crime: statutory rape.

Carols was 24; Renee said she was 17, though she was really 14. They met at a community dance. Their friendship turned to romance when she was 15. In 1993, Renee ran away from her group home and straight to Cruz's door. Police found her after she left his house the next morning. Cruz was shocked to learn that having sex with Renee was illegal. In El Salvador, a 25-year-old man dating a 17-year-old girl would be acceptable. He was arrested and charged with communicating with a minor for immoral purposes, a misdemeanor, and third-degree rape of a child -- also known as statutory rape. He admitted everything.
He was sentenced to and successfully completed 120 days of work release, 36 months of community supervision and 24 months of outpatient sex offender treatment. In therapy, he says, he came to understand why it was wrong to date a teenager. Cruz married several years later, a Mexican immigrant his own age. They met when she visited his taco van. They eventually bought a house in Wenatchee and had three children: Bianca, now 6; Nancy, 4, and Carlos Jr., 2.

Whatever his regrets, the law said he must be deported. Just as he was poised to become a U.S. citizen, he was ordered deported under a federal law that punishes immigrants with criminal records -- even those who have served their sentences.
Presented with a seemingly hopeless case, Gibbs tried a long shot -- seeking a pardon from the governor. Gov. Gary Locke grants only a half-dozen pardons and commutations a year.

As a non-citizen, no judge or jury could save him. His only hope was a pardon from the governor, a measure of redemption granted to only a few people each year.

In the end, his fate would turn on the words of a most unlikely champion. "I was attracted to Carlos' goodness and strength," she recalls. "He was very generous and open, the kind of person that would stop to help someone change a flat tire on the side of the road." They gathered court documents and letters from people who knew Cruz, from his therapist to his priest, family and business associates. But the person who most impressed the Clemency and Pardons Board was a voice from Cruz's past:
"My name is Renee Arceo," she wrote. "Although the state describes me as the 'victim' of this crime, I do not and have never thought of myself in this way."

Now 23, working as a secretary and the mother of two children, Renee Arceo told the Pardons Board about her relationship with Cruz, in an affidavit and in person at the hearing last year. "He had a very giving heart. He was also a hard worker, and had a steady job and a vision of what he wanted his life to be like. These were all things that I needed in my unstable life."
The five members of the pardon board listened carefully. Victims often testify at pardon hearings, but rarely on the side of the criminal. They questioned Renee about her family, the police report and Cruz. "I was in love with him," she said. "I don't think he's any threat to society at all."

The board had heard enough. That day, they voted unanimously to recommend that Cruz be pardoned, and thus be allowed to stay in the country. Their recommendation went to the governor. Cruz was working in his taco van last February when Gibbs called.

"I have really good news," Gibbs said. The governor said yes.

"You're not kidding me?" Cruz asked. He felt as if Gibbs had given him his life back. To celebrate, he went shopping for a new taco van for his sister, who'd just gotten her green card. That day, Cruz felt, "We belong to this country."

On July 4 he helped harvest cherries from an orchard he manages, then hosted a barbecue and lit fireworks. During Cruz's five-year legal battle, he says he never stopped believing that America would give him a second chance. He has resubmitted his citizenship application to the INS and hopes for a reply soon.