FREMONT
Family told it must leave U.S.
Filipinos lose fight to stay after 19 years

Cicero A. Estrella, Chronicle Staff Writer

The undocumented Fremont family that appealed to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and other legislators for permanent U.S. residence received its deportation letters Monday evening and is scheduled to be sent back to the Philippines on April 7 after living in the United States for 19 years.

The letters from the Department of Homeland Security ordered them to report to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's San Francisco offices on Sansome Street at 8 a.m. on the scheduled date for deportation.

"It's going to take a miracle (to stay)," said Dale Cuevas, 23, the family's adult son. "We are setting up to leave. We're looking into selling the house, doing other things to prepare."

The letters, addressed individually to each family member, read: "A review of your file indicates there is no administrative relief which may be extended to you, and it is now incumbent upon this service to enforce your departure from the United States."

Feinstein's office had advised the family to seek help from other legislators. Howard Gantman, Feinstein's director of communications in Washington, D.C., said she has already sponsored five private bills in the last year.

"These are extremely difficult bills to pass," he said. "We feel right now five is the maximum we can hope for, and we'll be lucky if we get them through (Congress)," he said.

The Cuevases also appealed to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont.
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UPDATE from Scott Lay: We had great success getting signatures on the petition to Senator Dianne Feinstein requesting assistance with the Cuevas family. Unfortunately, there has been no action from Feinstein’s office. Therefore, we need to put pressure on Barbara Boxer—who faces reelection this November—and the local Congressman, Pete Stark.

Please sign the petition today. Also, please forward this message (or from the site) to your friends. This e-mail is only being sent to the 399 people who consented to be contacted with follow-up information about the Cuevas family. So, we need lots of forwards to get to the 2,600 signatures we got on the Feinstein petition.

DON’T GIVE UP THE FIGHT!
1) Petition posted on San Diego Indymedia
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2004/02/102911.shtml

2)Call Pete Stark and Barbara Boxer and urge them to intercede and stop the deportation by writting a private bill to provide immediate and permanent citizenship to the Cuevas family.

Pete Stark:
Fremont office - 510 494 1388
DC office - 202 225 5065

Barbara Boxer:
San Francisco office - 415 403 0100
DC office - 202 224 3553

You can also email them messages online via:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
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Put your thinking caps on folks, we can't allow this to happen, as the family has stood up and asked for help. We must give it to them in whatever ways possible. Hopefully there will be some more direct organizing efforts and am sure there are already, besides just lobbying politicians to intercede, which they don't seem to want to do for one reason or another. Personally Barbara Boxer loses my vote this fall if she doesn't do anything, and I am ready to help organize other folks to take action on this manner(not the voting part, but stopping the deportation somehow).

in struggle - irlandeso