Reno Gazette Journal, NV
Jan 21 2005

Vegas area teens face deportation to unfamiliar country
Associated Press ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAS VEGAS – If immigration officials have their way, two sisters who
have lived in the United States for more than a decade will be
deported to a country so foreign they don’t even speak its language.

The Las Vegas area teenagers were taken into custody Jan. 14 by
federal agents after authorities determined they didn’t have a right
to stay in the country.

Emma Sarkisian, 18, and, sister Mariam, 17, remain at an undisclosed
location in Los Angeles while awaiting a judge’s decision on whether
to deport them to Armenia, where they were born.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert J. Johnston in Las Vegas granted the
sisters a temporary stay Wednesday.

Their lawyer, Jeremiah Wolf Stuchiner, said he intends to immediately
file a motion to have the sisters released.

Stuchiner called the circumstances surrounding the deportation
proceedings `absolutely ridiculous’ and said immigration officials
have refused to release the sisters.

The two came to the United States in 1991 on a tourist visa with
their family. The family sought political asylum but was denied.

After their parents divorced, their father married a U.S. citizen and
became a legal resident.

But the second marriage fell apart, and the father never became a
citizen.

In July, Stuchiner said, the father took the sisters to see
immigration officials in Las Vegas to ask about their legal status,
believing they were U.S. residents. But the sisters were not and
learned they would be deported.

When immigration officials called Armenian authorities, they were
told that technically the sisters had been born in the former Soviet
Union before Armenia became it’s own country and should be considered
Soviet citizens.

After the Armenian government indicated the sisters would not be
accepted, U.S. immigration authorities issued an order of
supervision, requiring them to check-in with federal officials each
month.

Meanwhile, Stuchiner had moved forward with trying to get the
sisters’ father U.S. citizenship. Once that happened, he could then
petition for his daughters to become residents.

But earlier this month, Armenian officials said the sisters could be
deported to the country, and U.S officials began preparing to fly
them out of the country before Johnston intervened.

If a hearing in federal court is granted, Stuchiner said he will
argue U.S. officials should allow the father to obtain his
citizenship and petition for the daughters to remain in the country
on humanitarian grounds.