Colorado Daily
Dec 3 2004

Holding out for hope
By: JOSEPH THOMAS Colorado Daily Staff

The American dream isn’t supposed to work this way.

The people who know Gevorg Sargsyan and his family the best say they
embodied the American dream until a month ago when they were whisked
away and placed in a United States Citizenship and Immigration
Services (USCIS) detention center in Aurora, Colo.

“They (the Sargsyan family) came here with not one single dollar, and
built themselves up,” said Patrick Edwards, a close friend of Gevorg
and a CU-Boulder student. “They are working to support Gevorg – a
dean’s list chemical engineer major at CU-Boulder, while paying
out-of-state tuition.”

The family came to America out of fear for their lives. According to
friends of the Sargsyan’s, the family lived in prestige in Armenia
where the father, a former Soviet rocket scientist, was known and
respected. They came to America as nobodies just trying to get by.

“This former rocket scientist was pressing donuts all night just so
his son could go to college,” said Edwards. “That is what America is
supposed to be about right? Apparently some people do not think so.”

A month ago the Sargsyan’s were abruptly placed into a USCIS
detention center. The visas the family obtained to come to America
were student visas. Allegedly turned in to the Immigration and
Naturalization Services by Gevorg’s sister’s husband, the Sargsyan’s
were instructed to go to a government office on Nov. 4 and have been
detained ever since.

“I found out about this in September, that there was a possibility
that he could get deported,” said Edwards. “So we started passing out
petitions, but I didn’t know anything was wrong until I was in class
and picked up the paper and saw he was in jail.”

“That broke me,” said Edwards.

Gevorg’s family moved to America when his sister, Nvart met Vaughn
Huckfeldt, an American man in 1999. She married him and moved to a
small home in Ridgeway, Colo. Nvart was granted permanent residence
in the United States, although the Immigration and Naturalization
Services (INS) has appealed her residency.

The family came to the United States amid death threats from the
Russian mafia.

Huckfeldt allegedly conned people in the community into buying United
States visas, charging each family more than 1,000 dollars a piece
but never distributing any visas.

Since Nvart was married to him at the time, families who were conned
then blamed the Sargsyans. The families who were conned paid the
Russian mafia to collect the lost money over the visas.

With the possibility of death looming, the Sargsyans then sold
everything and quickly relocated. Huckfeldt provided U.S. visas to
the family, and told them that they were valid.

They settled in Ridgeway, in Colorado’s Western Slope, where the
family gained a reputation as being smart and diligent, according to
friends of the family.

People close to the family say that Nvart’s marriage turned sour and
she filed for divorce.

Huckfeldt then turned her family into immigration officials for
faulty visas.

“Gevorg is a dean’s list chemical engineer; his brother is a honor
student at Ridgeway and an all conference soccer star; his father is
a former rocket scientist; his sister is a concert pianist and they
are all locked-up with violent criminals and drug addicts,” said
Edwards.

“The rights of aliens in the United States have been severely
diminished since 9/11 in this administration,” said Robert Golten,
director of the International Human Rights Advocacy Center at the
University of Denver. “It is harder to get into this country, and
once you get in and you run afoul of the law, even for relatively
minor offenses you are subject to deportation.”

Experts say that there is a chance for political asylum for the
Sargsyans, but it depends on how the Armenian government is portrayed
during the hearing.

“If he can establish that if he goes back he will be persecuted by
the government because of affiliation with political or religious
group, or some social group that is being discriminated against,”
said Golten.

According to Golten, there is an argument that can be made that the
government has an obligation to protect him from assassination or
personal harm.

“If he can establish that the government will not or is not able to
protect him, then he can argue that that kind of persecution would
entitle him to get asylum in the United States,” Golten said.

Meanwhile, Gevorg will live with in the same room with 45 other
people until his case is decided. He stays in the same room for 23
hours out of the day, and is allowed for one hour a day to go to a
recreation room – which entails a ping-pong table and two weight
machines that look as if they are from the 1970s.

Instead of studying chemical engineering, Gevorg spends his day
either watching television, reading, or crying.

“Even though I don’t have good memories about America, I do have good
memories of Americans,” Gevorg Sargsyan told the Colorado Daily from
the USCIS detention center in Aurora. “Regardless of what happens to
me, I will never hate Americans.”

Gevorg doesn’t see friends regularly anymore, nor can he pursue his
passion for soccer or attend the United States Kickboxing
Championship that he was invited to participate in this month.

Still, he said even that isn’t the worst part of being detained. The
worst part, he said, is not knowing what is going to happen and
losing hope.

“I have lost my hope quite a few times, where I didn’t care what was
happening and didn’t have any regard for the future,” said Gevorg.
“You don’t see anything out there, everything is restricted in here.
I suppose it is the worst feeling you can have, losing your hope.”