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Relatives Of Colombian Students Are Deported

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The New York Times

Published: October 31, 2007

MIAMI - The parents and grandmother of two students in Miami whose fight for legal immigration status came to symbolize the hopes of illegal immigrant students were deported Tuesday to Colombia.

The parents, Julio Cesar Gomez and his wife, Liliana, arrived at Miami International Airport in the morning and were placed on a commercial flight to Bogota. With them was Julio Cesar Gomez's mother, Carmen Elisa Perilla de Gomez, 84. They were deported after the family's final appeal failed this month in a petition for political asylum first presented in 1992.

Julio Cesar and Liliana Gomez are the parents of Juan Sebastian Gomez, 18, and his brother Alejandro, 20, both born in Colombia, whose illegal status became public when the family was first detained by immigration agents July 25. Classmates of Juan's at Miami Killian Senior High School, citing his exceptional academic performance, rallied the support of federal lawmakers, winning a temporary reprieve for the two young men.

The Gomez brothers became public faces for hundreds of thousands of students nationwide who are illegal immigrants and could benefit if Congress adopted legislation to give them legal status. The most recent effort, a bill sponsored by Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., failed to pass a procedural test vote last week.

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