Woman avoids deportation custody as group pays bond

A Maui woman was spared detention for deportation Wednesday after a group of supporters spontaneously raised enough money to underwrite a $5,000 bond.

Minerva, a 47-year-old house cleaner originally from Oaxaca, Mexico, was able to return to Maui with her daughter, 20, and son, 8.

“There were tears in her eyes,” Honolulu immigration attorney Clare Hanusz said of her client, declining to reveal the woman’s last name, citing privacy concerns. “She was incredibly grateful. Not only did the people open their hearts, but they opened their wallets.”

About 40 supporters rallied for the single mother at the Department of Homeland Security office Wednesday morning. The woman had been ordered to appear for deportation, but she filed a request for additional time, prompting the demand for the bond.

Minerva and her family must now wait to see whether the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service will grant the stay.

According to Hanusz, the woman has lived and worked in the U.S. for more than 20 years, most of them on Maui. She was arrested by immigration agents in 2009 following an anonymous tip. She has no criminal history.

Hanusz said the woman lost her case in immigration court because she couldn’t demonstrate her removal would result in “exceptional and extreme hardship” on her American-born children.

“In other words, extreme poverty, lack of educational opportunity and family separation are merely forms of normal hardship. Because the kids are healthy and smart the standard could not be met,” the attorney wrote in a description of the case.

Minerva’s case is similar to a more high-profile ongoing Hawaii deportation case — that of Kona coffee farmer Andres Magana Ortiz, who is facing removal and separation from his U.S.-born children even though he has lived and worked on the Big Island for more than 30 years.

The plight of the former Mexico resident went viral after a 9th Circuit Court judge wrote a strong opinion from the bench blasting President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and saying the deportation was unfair and heartless.

On Wednesday, when Minerva was ordered to pay $5,000 or be immediately taken to an INS detention facility, the family was crestfallen because it was beyond what they could pay, Hanusz said.

“It seemed to affect her daughter the most. She broke down at that point,” she said.

But the group outside responded generously, raising even more funds than necessary. The Rev. Cheol Kwak, pastor of Harris United Methodist Church in Honolulu, stepped up to pay the bond.

Supporters, including members of Hawaii J20+ and the Harris church, demonstrated in front of the Homeland Security building on Ala Moana Boulevard, carrying signs that declared, “No Attacks on Immigrants!” “Dissent Is Patriotic” and “Immigrants &Refugees Welcome.”

Coffee farmer Magana Ortiz, meanwhile, is reportedly facing deportation today unless he wins a reprieve.

That could happen, as headlines drew some powerful allies in the form of Hawaii’s congressional delegation, which formally asked Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to intervene.