LasVegas Sun, NV
Jan 26 2005

Editorial: Don’t break family apart
LAS VEGAS SUN

Two Las Vegas girls, whose only crime was to have been brought to the
United States by their father when they were 4 and 3, are being
detained in a federal holding cell in Los Angeles, awaiting
deportation. They’ve been there 11 days now. It’s up to a federal
magistrate to decide whether they should be separated from their
family, including three other sisters, or be sent to Armenia. That is
their country of birth, but, to them, it’s an alien land where they
have no friends or family, no language skills, no means of supporting
themselves.

Only some desperate calls by their family’s attorney on Jan. 17
prevented them from being forcibly boarded onto a plane. On Jan. 18
they received a reprieve when the one flight to Moscow was full. On
Jan. 19, just three hours before their scheduled flight, their lawyer
was successful in appealing to a federal magistrate, who granted the
girls a stay while he reviewed the facts of the case.

The girls are Emma Sarkisian, 18, who graduated last June from Palo
Verde High School, and her sister, Mariam, 17, a student at Palo
Verde. Their parents, Rouben and Anoush Sarkisian, brought them to
the U.S. in 1991. The couple had three more daughters, who, having
been born here, are legal citizens. The marriage broke up and Rouben
married a U.S. citizen, automatically making him a U.S. “resident”
under immigration law. That marriage also broke up and the residency
status of the two girls remained in limbo until last July. That month
Rouben took the girls to immigration officials, hoping to confirm
their status as residents. Instead, officials determined they weren’t
legal citizens and ordered the girls to check in with them once a
month. They also began negotiating with Armenia to receive them.

As Armenia was a republic of the Soviet Union at the time of the
girls’ birth, officials of the now-independent republic at first
disclaimed any responsibility for them. But on Jan. 14, during their
monthly visit to the immigration office, the girls were told that
Armenia had decided to accept them and they were whisked away to the
cell in Los Angeles.

In our view, the girls should be immediately released from custody
and returned to their family while awaiting the magistrate’s
decision. We also believe it would be a miscarriage of justice for
the girls to be deported. This is the only country they’ve ever
known. Their father erred in not applying for their residency years
ago. But by any humanitarian standard, that is no reason for the
girls to be traumatized by tearing them away from their family, their
friends and the lives they’ve been living here.