Immigrant finds help in getting back to America (The Daily Advertiser)

Immigrant finds help in getting back to America

September 14, 2009

LAKE CHARLES(AP) — It was almost two years since the 27-year-old man had seen his wife and their children, a 4-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl.

"My little boy Hunter was shy, but he recognized my voice and smiled. But my daughter Amber jumped all over me with hugs. I was so happy," said Elvis Martinez, now legally at home in the country where he had lived illegally since he was 16.

He left Honduras in 1998 to join relatives already in the United States, and try to improve his life. His mother had died.

"She was young, 47, when she got a kidney infection and then died. I took care of her. After that, I didn't want to stay. So I left, and it took me a month and a half to get to America," Martinez said.

He walked and took buses to Houston, where an aunt lived.

Martinez was among about 2.9 million people who entered the country without authorization from 1995-99, according to a study released in 2006 by the Pew Hispanic Center.

He got a low-paying restaurant job, and eventually a job in a paint and body shop where he worked for more than four years.

While working there, Martinez, met his wife, Hayden, a Lake Charles native.

"I didn't get married for my immigration papers," Martinez said. "I got married for love."

His daughter's name is tattooed on his right forearm; his own on the left.

Encouraged by Martinez's brother, the couple moved to North Carolina for more work opportunities. The weather was too chilly for Hayden, so the family moved to Lake Charles, and Martinez was hired to work in the paint and body shop at a car dealership.

That was when Hayden asked her husband if he had thought about becoming a legal resident.

At Southwest Louisiana Legal Services, he met with local attorney Beth Zilbert and immigration guru Shannon Cox.

"Because he came to the U.S. without legal permission, he had to go back to his home country in Honduras in order to get his visa processed," Zilbert said.

Martinez reluctantly drove to Houston, walked onto an airliner and flew back to Central America. Unable to afford their rent, his wife and children went to a shelter.

Martinez expected to be out of the U.S. no more than a few months.

But paperwork got lost.

"I was told my visa was denied," Martinez remembered. "Why? I couldn't believe it, and I had my family in America. It made me cry."

He spent time with his family in San Pedro Sula, a city with over 1 million residents in the northwestern section of Honduras near the Caribbean Sea.

And he learned that his tattoos gave people the wrong impression.

"After about a month, I started getting out, going to Internet cafes to communicate with my wife and kids. Police would see me and thought I was a gangster because of the tattoos," he said.

He had trouble getting a job. "Business owners didn't want people around like that. They thought it was gangster stuff. But I did get a job in an auto body shop with a guy from Costa Rica," he said.

Cox remembers getting frequent pay phone calls from Martinez.

"He'd be telling me, 'You have to get me out of here. It's dangerous for me,'" Cox said.

On June 28 — coincidentally, the day a coup exiled Honduran President Manuel Zelaya — Cox and Zilbert were told that Martinez's visa and green card were available.

"But perseverance pays off," Zilbert said.

An official at the American consulate called Martinez on Aug. 26.

"I was so happy," Martinez said.

He was given his immigration papers and immediately bought an airline ticket to Houston.

"I was leaving my family, but I was going to my family. I couldn't believe it," Martinez said.

Now that he's in Lake Charles, Martinez plans to get a Social Security number, driver's license, open a bank account and start repairing cars again. He also intends to become an American citizen.

"This is a place for opportunity. It's a good place, but you can't mess around in America. You must follow the rules," Martinez said.

Cox said her client's visa is valid for one year. But permanent residency papers — which will let him stay in America 10 years — will be available to him in the coming weeks.

"His case should have been done and finished within the first nine months he went back to Honduras," Cox said. "The consulate basically lost his immigration packet, added to overall inefficiency."

She encourages any immigrant "to come to America the right way. Come legally. I understand why they take the chance, but it's not worth it."

Returning home voluntarily gave Martinez the right to apply for a visa and waiver. Had he been caught as an illegal immigrant, he could have been deported and faced a potential three-year to lifetime ban.

When he flew into Houston at the end of August, passport and visa in hand, the first step was an interview with a U.S. immigration official.

"He said, 'Welcome to America.' That felt so good," Martinez said.