By PAUL GRONDAHLConnecticut Post
CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. - Maria Edmondson, 67, is a petite, shy woman who never married, worked in clerical jobs and lived a simple life in Barranquilla, Colombia.
As the grandmother who raised her and other relatives died, Edmondson, who speaks little English, began making extended summer stays at her half-sister's home in this suburban community. She developed a strong connection to her relatives here and applied for U.S. citizenship.
Her father and paternal grandfather were U.S. citizens and government employees who helped America build and operate the Panama Canal.
Immigration authorities denied Edmondson's citizenship application in 2001 and now want to deport her, making it unlikely that she ever would be able to visit her two stepsisters in the States again.
Albany attorney Seth Leech has until April 30 to file a brief to try to delay deportation proceedings. The deadline weighs heavily on the family.
David Santos, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said he cannot comment on an individual's immigration status due to privacy restrictions.
Leech, an attorney with Whiteman Osterman & Hanna in Albany, specializes in immigration law. He took up Edmondson's case after a Florida lawyer failed to prove that Edmondson's father spent time in the U.S. prior to Maria's birth in 1942, a requirement, because the family had not saved legal records that far back.
After her citizenship application was denied, Edmondson applied for a green card based on her father's U.S. citizenship, but he died before it was completed and her petition was declared null and void.
"The government could do the right thing and allow Maria to stay as a humanitarian case," Leech said. "But USCIS is under a lot of pressure to close cases and Maria is caught up in a numbers game."
An additional impediment is the fact that Russell lives in the 20th Congressional District and the Jim Tedisco and Scott Murphy deadlock is expected to drag on for some time, leaving Russell without a representative in Congress to introduce a special bill to bolster her stepsister's humanitarian appeal.
"I like to come here to see my sister," Edmondson said softly in Spanish on a recent morning as her stepsister, Sandy Russell, translated. "This is my family here. I have no family left in Colombia."
On a recent morning, Russell sat on a couch in the living room of her suburban home, with Edmondson on her left and sister Nancy Murphy, of Warwick, R.I., on her right. She mused aloud about what it means to be American.
"Maria looks more American than I do. She has the clear eyes," said Russell, a librarian in the Shenendehowa school district. "We're a country built by immigrants. We seem to have lost sight of that."
"The problem is that we don't have enough documentation to prove that Maria is a U.S. citizen," Leech said, despite the fact that her grandfather was born in San Francisco and her father was American by birth, served in the U.S. Army and worked for the American government in the Panama Canal Zone.
Edmondson was born out of wedlock. Her father, Juan Edmondson, got a young woman pregnant when he was 21. They went their separate ways and his mother raised the baby named Maria, nicknamed Maya.
"It wasn't something you asked about," Russell said.
Their father, who had dual Colombian and U.S. citizenship, married a Panamanian woman and had three more children: two daughters and a son, Alfred, who had Down syndrome and died last October in Rhode Island, where he lived in a group home.
Growing up, Maria traveled often between her grandmother's home in Colombia to visit her father and his family in Panama. Russell and Murphy grew up in Panama and are both U.S. citizens. They never claimed their Panamanian citizenship. Both came to the States for college, married and raised families.
"This has been very hard on all of us," said Murphy, who works as a special education occupational therapist. "Maria has done everything legally."
With the April 30 deadline approaching, Russell's resentment is growing.
"For the life of me, I try to understand our immigration policy and I can't," Russell said. "Where's the common sense?"
CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. - Maria Edmondson, 67, is a petite, shy woman who never married, worked in clerical jobs and lived a simple life in Barranquilla, Colombia.
As the grandmother who raised her and other relatives died, Edmondson, who speaks little English, began making extended summer stays at her half-sister's home in this suburban community. She developed a strong connection to her relatives here and applied for U.S. citizenship.
Her father and paternal grandfather were U.S. citizens and government employees who helped America build and operate the Panama Canal.
Immigration authorities denied Edmondson's citizenship application in 2001 and now want to deport her, making it unlikely that she ever would be able to visit her two stepsisters in the States again.
Albany attorney Seth Leech has until April 30 to file a brief to try to delay deportation proceedings. The deadline weighs heavily on the family.
David Santos, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said he cannot comment on an individual's immigration status due to privacy restrictions.
Leech, an attorney with Whiteman Osterman & Hanna in Albany, specializes in immigration law. He took up Edmondson's case after a Florida lawyer failed to prove that Edmondson's father spent time in the U.S. prior to Maria's birth in 1942, a requirement, because the family had not saved legal records that far back.
After her citizenship application was denied, Edmondson applied for a green card based on her father's U.S. citizenship, but he died before it was completed and her petition was declared null and void.
"The government could do the right thing and allow Maria to stay as a humanitarian case," Leech said. "But USCIS is under a lot of pressure to close cases and Maria is caught up in a numbers game."
An additional impediment is the fact that Russell lives in the 20th Congressional District and the Jim Tedisco and Scott Murphy deadlock is expected to drag on for some time, leaving Russell without a representative in Congress to introduce a special bill to bolster her stepsister's humanitarian appeal.
"I like to come here to see my sister," Edmondson said softly in Spanish on a recent morning as her stepsister, Sandy Russell, translated. "This is my family here. I have no family left in Colombia."
On a recent morning, Russell sat on a couch in the living room of her suburban home, with Edmondson on her left and sister Nancy Murphy, of Warwick, R.I., on her right. She mused aloud about what it means to be American.
"Maria looks more American than I do. She has the clear eyes," said Russell, a librarian in the Shenendehowa school district. "We're a country built by immigrants. We seem to have lost sight of that."
"The problem is that we don't have enough documentation to prove that Maria is a U.S. citizen," Leech said, despite the fact that her grandfather was born in San Francisco and her father was American by birth, served in the U.S. Army and worked for the American government in the Panama Canal Zone.
Edmondson was born out of wedlock. Her father, Juan Edmondson, got a young woman pregnant when he was 21. They went their separate ways and his mother raised the baby named Maria, nicknamed Maya.
"It wasn't something you asked about," Russell said.
Their father, who had dual Colombian and U.S. citizenship, married a Panamanian woman and had three more children: two daughters and a son, Alfred, who had Down syndrome and died last October in Rhode Island, where he lived in a group home.
Growing up, Maria traveled often between her grandmother's home in Colombia to visit her father and his family in Panama. Russell and Murphy grew up in Panama and are both U.S. citizens. They never claimed their Panamanian citizenship. Both came to the States for college, married and raised families.
"This has been very hard on all of us," said Murphy, who works as a special education occupational therapist. "Maria has done everything legally."
With the April 30 deadline approaching, Russell's resentment is growing.
"For the life of me, I try to understand our immigration policy and I can't," Russell said. "Where's the common sense?"
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