Deportation on hold for cancer patient's guardians (AP via San Jose Mercury News)

Deportation on hold for cancer patient's guardians

By E.J. TAMARA Associated Press
Posted: 08/30/2011 03:31:24 PM PDT

LOS ANGELES—Immigration authorities on Tuesday agreed to suspend the deportation of the guardians of a 17-year-old California leukemia patient and release them from detention, an official said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement will suspend for a year the deportation to Peru of Jose Humberto and Hilda Jauregui (HOW'-ray-gee), whose granddaughter Joseline suffers from leukemia and diabetes, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the agency.

Authorities also will suspend the deportation of Lili Jauregui, the couple's daughter, who has been detained with them since July, Kice said.

Kice did not provide a reason for the suspensions except to say they were "appropriate."

The decision comes a day after The Associated Press reported that Joseline, who is a U.S. citizen, had asked immigration authorities to refrain from deporting her grandparents for humanitarian reasons.

While the teen's cancer is in remission, she is still undergoing related treatment and said she needs the Jaureguis—who have raised her since birth and became her formal guardians last year—to care for her.

"If they take them away, I don't think I can live," she told the AP before ICE's decision.

Immigration authorities arrested the Jaureguis at their Duarte home in July. The couple had tried to obtain legal papers more than a decade ago but was defrauded by a lawyer who botched the case, said Jessica Dominguez, the family's current immigration attorney.

Dominguez said she expected the family to be released Tuesday night.