Friday, December 24, 1999
Marriage for love or green card?
BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Barely 15 hours after they saw each other for the first time in person, Luis Alberto de Leon and Sonia Aida Paz were married Thursday afternoon at the Hamilton County Courthouse.
Mr. de Leon, 43, a Guatemalan immigrant whose application for political asylum was denied in May, met his wife through her cousin, Mr. de Leon's Winton Place neighbor.
Ms. Paz, 47, a Honduran, had lived in Los Angeles for 17 years. Her status as a permanent U.S. resident will not immediately help her husband's effort to stay in this country.
In August, they started talking daily on the telephone and exchanged letters and photographs. She accepted his marriage proposal two months later.
Their marriage is about love, they say, not a green card.
“She is very sweet. She is very beautiful,” Mr. de Leon said minutes after Municipal Court Judge James Patrick Kenney married the couple. “She says, "Luis, I love you for a long time, not for one year or two years.'”
Ms. Paz, the mother of two adult daughters, is a jewelry maker who will move to Cincinnati to live with her husband. He has a work permit and a job at Serta Mattress Co., Queensgate, and has a small apartment he has been fixing up for his bride.
“He caught my heart when we spoke on the phone,” she said in Spanish through an interpreter. “He sent me flowers.”
Ms. Paz didn't have to learn English while living in Los Angeles. She will take language classes in Cincinnati and apply for U.S. citizenship.
Her citizenship would help her husband in one way, said Mr. de Leon's lawyer, Douglas Weigle.
If Ms. Paz becomes a citizen, a process which can take up to a year, her husband's application for permanent residency moves from a four-year wait to a three- to six-month wait, Mr. Weigle said.
And time is critical in Mr. de Leon's case.
He appealed the judge's asylum ruling, which was seven months ago. Asylum appeals now are taking about 15 months, Mr. Weigle said.
Mr. de Leon's appeal could be scheduled at any time by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and he could be asked to leave the United States if his appeal also is denied.
“His protection of being married to a citizen is it speeds up the process for a green card,” Mr. Weigle said. Green cards, the informal name for Alien Registration Receipt Cards, are vital for foreigners who want to obtain work and government benefits in the United States.
If Mr. de Leon's luck holds out and he is able to apply for permanent residency as the spouse of a citizen, he can expect an INS interview.
“It has to be a real marriage,” Mr. Weigle said. “Immigration looks at the circumstances. They'll put them in separate rooms and ask them what the other person's favorite dessert is. What they did last night. Who walked the dog. The marriage has to be made in heaven, not the federal building.”
Mr. de Leon wants to stay in the United States because he fears for his life in Guatemala. He testified in court that he was a journalist during Guatemala's 36-year civil war and prepared articles critical of the government's human-rights abuses. He left his home in Guatemala City in late 1990, leaving behind his sister, four children and his wife, who since divorced him.
He arrived in Cincinnati in 1991. His path here went through Mexico and Brownsville, Texas. He was brought to Cincinnati by La Amistad, a local ministry that provides temporary housing and assistance to Central American refugees. La Amistad was founded in 1983 by the New Jerusalem Community, a lay Catholic organization in Winton Place.
If he had to go back to Guatemala, Mr. de Leon said, he would be tortured and killed by the military.
The Enquirer wrote about Mr. de Leon in May, and a woman from Kentucky called Mr. de Leon several times and offered to marry him to help his cause. He politely declined each time.
He would marry only for love, he said.
That day came Thursday.
Seven people attended the ceremony — Mr. Weigle, Gary and Linda Robbins (La Amistad members) and Osmin and Marixa Jimenez and their two children. Mrs. Jimenez visited her cousin, Ms. Paz, in Los Angeles this summer and told her about Mr. de Leon. The new couple soon started to talk on the telephone.
“Two, three hours a day, every day,” Mr. de Leon said. “I have been so lonely. I was so happy. I told everybody I had a girlfriend on the phone. They said I was crazy.”
Thirty-five guests shared dinner Thursday night with the couple at China Buffet in Sharonville. Afterward, 50 people attended a party at the Robbins' Winton Place home.
“I would like to buy a house. That is my goal,” Mr. de Leon said. “I now have somebody to talk to, to go to dinner or a movie with. Greater happiness is coming. I am asking God to give me a few years to enjoy the happiness I am now experiencing.”
They kissed three times in the courtroom, and held hands when they walked to his car.
“I want to bring him happiness,” Ms. Paz said. “I want to be a good wife to him and work on our wonderful relationship. And if God would will it, I would like to have a baby.”
Fire displaces 55 families
How to help fire victims
Neighbors rush donations after fire
Memories of a city people love
A tough job, but Santas do it
Road work to be reviewed
'Twas the Night Before Christmas'
City says some police shootings reviewed
Utilities win battle for less tax liability
Marriage for love or green card?
African-American groups object to Heimlich funding-cut proposals
Empowerment zone going nowhere, Winburn charges
Unique clock to ring in 2000
Boyfriend sentenced for killing
Clermont fugitive held in Florida
Courthouse bid debacle sparks bill
Creche display spans globe
Federal judges bans arrests of homeless
Judge rebuffs reinstatement try
Mapplethorpe photo overturns sex conviction
Newport re-expands concept
Six deputies will beef up sheriff's unit
TRISTATE DIGEST
