The call from the White House came Wednesday night.
| Front Page |
By Lisa Sandberg
San Antonio Express-News, February 20, 2004
By Thursday morning, Francesca Barreh was typing a frantic, last-ditch
appeal to the president as her three young sons ran wild in their
sparsely furnished Northwest Side apartment.
"Please, Mr. President George W. Bush, help bring my loving husband
home where he belongs," the letter read.
It's been a tough three weeks since her husband, Idriss, was ordered
to return to his native Djibouti in Africa because immigration
officials said his first marriage in the United States was a sham.
Unemployed, Barreh is running out of money and losing her apartment;
Idriss was the family's sole breadwinner.
Overwhelmed, she has little control over their rambunctious three
sons, Muhummed, 4; Ishmael 2; and Elijah, 9 months.
Now she is hoping that a president who defines himself as a family man
will help restore hers.
"I don't think he's going to ignore this," she said Thursday.
The president may have the power to intervene, but there's not much
chance he will, said U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez.
Defrauding immigration authorities is "like the kiss of death," the
San Antonio Democrat said. "There's no slack."
In December, after at least two court setbacks, immigration
authorities rejected Idriss' application for a green card, saying they
considered his first marriage, to a U.S. citizen 24 years his senior,
a sham.
He divorced his first wife in January 1999 after a tumultuous marriage
of nearly three years that included her initial support for him to
stay.
He pleaded guilty to threatening her, and after the divorce she
withdrew her petition.
On Jan. 25, just ahead of a federal deadline, the father of three
young American citizens hugged his family at the airport and departed
for east Africa with no certainty of ever returning.
In the weeks since, as Idriss has struggled to find work in his
poverty-stricken land, Francesca, a naturalized U.S. citizen from
Italy, has sought the help of anyone who will listen.
She called the White House at Gonzalez's suggestion. To her surprise,
a White House liaison called back and recommended she appeal to the
president directly.
As she waits for a response, Francesca, a 39-year-old New York native,
tries to keep it all together.
She has to be out of her apartment by the end of the month because she
can't afford the rent. She will pack the family in their silver
minivan and head to a homeless shelter in Providence, R.I., which has
a large Italian population.
Starting over with three young children is a daunting task.
"I am overwhelmed!" she said as Ishmael climbed on a kitchen cabinet
and Muhummed slipped out through the patio fence.
Barreh feels her husband's absence most profoundly late at night, when
Idriss normally returned home from his job as a surgical technician at
a local hospital.
"It's when everything's settled and there's just silence. At 11:30 at
night, I know he's not coming home."
Idriss, 34, who arrived in San Antonio in the mid-1990s as a member of
the Djibouti army, sounded just as desperate when reached by telephone
Thursday at his brother's cramped home in his country's capital.
"There's no life in Djibouti," he said. "There are no jobs or money. I
am penniless."
He said only God knows if he will ever be united with his family.
lsandberg@express-news.net
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