Immigration Awaiting To Deport Gilboa Teen

[Blue Diadem]

This really ticks me off..this kid goes to Immigration and they throw him in jail. He didn't know he wasn't a citizen until last summer.

http://www.nbc24.com/Global/story.asp?S=4295480


Gilboa, OH) --- Last week, Gilboa teenager Manuel Bartsch was looking forward to graduating in the town where he grew up. But now he's hoping to get out of jail, caught in the middle of an immigration nightmare.

snip:

What the teen did was come to America with his step-grandfather back when he was an eight-year-old boy in fourth grade.

Bartsch says he grew up thinking he was an American, until last summer when he learned he has no Social Security number. Last week he showed up for a meeting with Immigration hoping to become a legal American.

Instead, federal officials took him straight to jail.

Another article here:

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051229/NEWS17/512290398

Putnam County teen facing deportation
Pandora-Gilboa senior a federal detainee

GILBOA, Ohio - Manuel Bartsch, 18, has one semester left before graduation from Pandora-Gilboa High School.


But he never expected this kind of holiday break: spent, unwillingly, as a federal detainee in a Bedford Heights, Ohio, jail while immigration officials plan his deportation.

snip: "I think it would be a travesty if he weren't allowed to graduate," Mr. Wahl said. "We just don't know at this point whether there needs to be a great public outcry to get people's attention."

Mr. Bartsch was brought to the United States in 1997 by his step-grandfather, who returned to Germany this summer. Only when Mr. Barstch tried to get documents - a Social Security number and the like - did he learn he's not a U.S. citizen.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. They had a similar situation in Missouri

It was a family. The entire town where they lived rallied behind them and asked that they be allowed to stay. But immigration deported them anyway. It was very sad. They hadn't done a thing wrong. They had waited for years to hear from immigration, which had lost their papers. Then after 9/11, the authorities all of a sudden decided they were a 'threat' and sent them back to their native country.

[Blue Diadem]

2. They recently did that to a Korean family too..except they just deported

the mother and the father leaving their 15 yr old son here in Toledo. The parents had been here 20 yrs or so and had never become citizens.

It's heartbreaking..

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. They left a daughter here of the family I mentioned.

[Gormy Cuss]

4. For Pete's sake the least we could do for this kid

is let him finish high school.

[Blue Diadem]

5. He's even offered to go back to Germany if they just let him graduate

He's not asking for much..just a few more months. How awful that his young life has turned upside down because of this.