I am 21-years-old and overcame a childhood as an illegal immigrant, an education in alternative schools and the collapse of Enron Corp.

I am a nationally known spokesman for displaced Enron workers, may now face deportation back to my native El Salvador because I impregnated a 13-year-old fellow student when I was 17. The girl insisted the sex was consensual, and we are now married, but that did not prevent me from being charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, a felony, to which I pleaded guilty in 1999.

My fellow ex-Enron employees also question the unusual timing of the government's decision to deport me. My deportation comes at a time when I have become well known for my role in criticizing Enron. Instead of deporting me directly after my plea agreement in 1999, as would normally be done, the Immigration and Naturalization Service waited more than two years, when my case was brought to the INS' attention by my probation officer.

My wife and I were outside a friend's house with our son one evening when we started to argue, and the police were called. The police noted that my wife was 14, and I was booked on charges of sexual assault of a child. On the advice of my attorney, I decided to plead guilty in exchange for deferred adjudication, which meant I would be on probation for 8 years. I married my wife two months after my plea agreement.

I was not deported, and I began to turn my life around. When I graduated in 2000, three companies fought for my services. I chose Enron, where I eventually went to work for the senior director of the database development team.

After Enron collapse I landed on my feet, taking a job for Distributed Network Service Corp. All this time, I was on probation as a sex offender. I did not handle my relationship with my probation officer well - tensions developed between the officer and me. I missed a couple of meetings, a violation of his probation. But instead of notifying the judge, the probation officer sent the case file straight to the INS, knowing that this would almost certainly get me deported.


I was being held in a detention center near Bush Intercontinental Airport; it remains uncertain what I can do. The law clearly states that a non-citizen convicted of an aggravated felony must be deported back to his country of origin.

Can I ask the judge in the sexual assault case to allow me to withdraw my guilty plea, which could result in a new trial?

I'm a parent of a 13-year-old daughter and I pray to God that her childhood is never interrupted and her innocence never destroyed before she's grown. Your comments offend my senses to the bone. You still think you shouldn't be deported. If I could, I'd deport you myself, for ruining a child's life and her family's hopes and dreams. FOUR YEARS LATER, your "wife" is not even an adult yet, and YOU should have been sent packing long ago. Another INS mistake in their lax attitudes. What a shame.

???

my suggestion? Leave the US immediately. Maybe you can sell your sob story to some tabloid - preferably in another country.

Exactly.

You can leave this country immediately! Your uncivilized mentality goes completely against U.S. values and how U.S. citizens think and live. If you had not been allowed to stay by the incompetent INS, just think how one little girl's life could have been so different! Time to go home, pal!

A 13-year-old-girl is not an adult and is not emotionally mature enough to CONSENT to anything -- especially not a conscious understanding of LOVE versus dependency, infatuation and pure physical attraction. You don't know much about child development, puberty and adolescence, do you?

I agree with Love 101. There is no such thing as consensual sex when the girl is that young. 13 years old! The girl just barely graduated from elementary school!! What did she know about love and sex?! And FYI, the United States is not the only country that has a law against it.

Excuse you "leavers", how can this person leave the country when his wife (the alleged "raped" person) and their son lives here? Are you OUT OF YOUR MINDS???

If you read his beginning post, he is under deportation proceedings or thinks he's about to be.

If he's deportable, he will be deported, regardless of his wife and/or child.

What are YOU talking about? Please share it if you know!

s/he knows nothing, otherwise would have already shared.

Africa united....

.....and others......

don't ya know that the real sex offenders are much more different from this guy who did nothing wrong?!

For instance, a sexual predator with full-blown AIDS who rapes young girls and boys, knowingly infecting them with the deadly HIV virus would be the one who'd deserve these words of yours -- the most recent case being that of Nushawn Williams, a drug-dealing black drifter from the mean streets of New York who hung around school yards and playgrounds using drugs as a lure for sex. He infected more than a dozen teenagers, some girls as young as thirteen-years-old.

Oh my gosh! Really horrible...

Yes this is really horrible, but let's not forget that there are SO MANY other young people over there who do not disclose to their partners that they are HIV+. Judging from this point of view, it seems that even this person's crimes are induced by the society itself.

Despite the fact that the original poster was initially not committing a crime (I believe he stated that he was 17 then he was having a sexual relationship with a 13 yrs. old and that she got pregnant at that point), lets not forget that the issue at hand is a lot more complicated than could be solved with a simple labeling as child molester.

Unlike many others who get their girlfriends (and often enough teenagers) pregnant, at least he had the decency to marry her and hopefully care for her and the baby like a father and spouse should. From his work-history we will positively assume that he did!

So intially he wasn't really committing a crime, it only became a crime than she got pregnant and they married then he turned 18.

Of course it's outrageous to think that a minor (and she still is) can make such tremondeous decisions, but once she is married, under federal law, she becomes "emancipated" and meaning that her decisions are considered legally binding (same with someone who joins the armed forces before the age of 18, I don't think this practice is very common these days anymore).

Anyway, I believe there are some real legal discrepancies in regard to what and when it constitutes statuary rape with a minor in the case of a married coupled. You'd need to investigate the state laws and compare them with the federal laws.

For the sake of the baby, I'd hope that all would go well, and that you as well as your minor spouse will make the right decisions not in your own interrest, but as you ought to: in the interrest of your child. Get a good attorney!

I read your post one more time and find it more troubling: since you married your minor spouse after you had turned 18 already (and the arrest was when you two were not married, but you were an adult already), the INS and law is pretty much against you.

With the 8 yrs. of probation (!!!), which means that you're an "aggravated felon" and the deportation proceedings in progress, only an executive pardon will do it for you and your family.

"Statutory Rape" is an aggravated felony regardless of the sentence one receives, that is to say, even if one has not been ordered to go to jail for a single day (as the case was with this person) and placed on probation.



FYI:

-- For many of the most common aggravated felonies, the sentence imposed is decisive. These offenses constitute aggravated felonies IF AND ONLY IF a *sentence of one year or more in custody* is ordered by the court. Therefore, for these offenses, the many defenses against a sentence imposed of one year or more constitute complete defenses to aggravated felony status.

-- The balance of the offenses on the list constitute aggravated felonies REGARDLESS OF THE SENTENCE IMPOSED, and for these there is no "sentence imposed" defense at all: even the most minor of these latter offenses will constitute aggravated felonies regardless of how small a sentence is imposed.

-- A third category of offenses on the list are defined as aggravated felonies on the basis of the POTENTIAL/MAXIMUM POSSIBLE SENTENCE THAT MAY BE IMPOSED either for the particular offense or some related offense: organized crime (RICO) offenses and two varieties of failure to appear in court in criminal cases.


How "sentence imposed" is computed for immigration purposes?

Basically, it is the amount of custody time ordered by a court as part of a criminal sentence for a criminal conviction. This can be either as part of a judgment, or as a condition of probation. A sentence imposed for which execution of sentence is suspended counts as the full sentence imposed.

1. Aggravated Felonies ONLY IF ONE-YEAR IS
IMPOSED:
-------------------------------------------------

The following offenses constitute aggravated felonies only if custody of one year or more was ordered by the sentencing court.

- accessory after the fact
- bribery of a witness
- burglary
- commercial bribery
- counterfeiting
- crimes of violence
- document fraud
- forgery
- obstruction of justice
- perjury
- receipt of stolen property
- subornation of perjury
- theft
- trafficking in vehicles with altered identification numbers


Strategy: For these listed offenses only, a sentence imposed of 364-days or less will prevent the offense from becoming an aggravated felony. Conviction of three counts of theft, with imposition of sentence suspended and no more than 364 days as a condition of probation for each to run consecutively, for example, would not result in any aggravated felony conviction.



2. Aggravated Felonies Regardless of Sentence
-----------------------------------------------

The following offenses constitute aggravated felonies regardless of the sentence imposed:

- alien smuggling (except for a first conviction in which the person smuggled was an immediate family member.)
- failure to appear (for service of sentence if the underlying offense is punishable by a term of 5 years or more -- before a court pursuant to a court order to answer to or dispose of a charge of a felony for which a sentence of 2 years' imprisonment or more may be imposed.)
- financial transactions involving proceeds from specified unlawful activity
- fraud
- deceit
- money laundering
- murder
- prostitution business operation
- rape
- revealing the identity of domestic or international undercover agents
- RICO offenses in which a sentence of one year could have been imposed
- sexual abuse of a minor
- Statutory rape probably will be held to constitute sexual abuse of a minor.
- slavery and peonage
- tax evasion (loss)
- trafficking in controlled substances (e.g., possession for sale or sale of $10 of marijuana).For a noncitizen who wishes above all to stay in the United States, a minor drug sale is like a capital offense. In addition, any drug offense listed in specified federal controlled substance statutes, or in exact state analogues to the federal offenses, is an aggravated felony. The 9th Circuit recently held that a second conviction of simple possession of marijuana is an aggravated felony, because a second conviction of simple possession of marijuana would be a felony under one of the named federal statutes.
- trafficking in firearms or destructive devices (bombs, grenades)

Common sense will NOT help with these offenses. They will be considered aggravated felonies, if they meet the definition, EVEN IF they are so minor NO CUSTODY AT ALL is imposed, and in some cases even if they constitute only misdemeanor convictions.


3. Offenses Defined in Terms of Potential Sentence
------------------------------------------------

Several offenses on the list immediately above (for which the actual sentence is irrelevant) are defined as aggravated felonies on the basis of the potential or maximum possible sentence that may be imposed either for the particular offense or some related offense:
- organized crime (RICO) offenses and
- the two varieties of failure to appear in court in criminal cases (to answer a charge, or to appear for sentence).

For example, a RICO offense "for which a sentence of one year or more may be imposed," constitutes an aggravated felony. The aggravated felony category also includes two different aggravated felonies of failing to appear
(a) to answer a criminal charge "pursuant to a court order to answer or dispose of a charge of a felony for which a sentence of 2 years' imprisonment or more may be imposed, " or
(b) for sentencing "if the underlying offense is punishable by imprisonment for a term of five years or more . . . ."

You people act like you condone what this boy (now man) did to a girl so young and her family. You just think it's okay. Let's not forget that he was arrested and charged according to our laws - and believe me THOSE are laws we Americans NEVER want to change!!

You people also act like this situation is an everyday thing!! Well, I have news! There MAY be kids who are 13 getting pregnant willingly in the GHETTOS of America, but MOST girls that age in civilized America are at home with their families sleeping in their own beds after doing homework and eating their bedtime snacks!!

This guy needs to be deported ASAP before he ruins the REST of this child's young life!!

Please,

I agree what this man did when he was a boy (teen himself) was wrong, but I disagree with your assumption that only in the ghettos of America teenagers are having sex. There are many studies (surveys) of teenagers all across America from the heart land to the West and East Coasts of America that reveal that teens from all cultures are engaging in sex from a very early age. We tend to think as White middle class Americans that it is not our kid but the ones we see from other cultures or communities that are having sex, but we are wrong. And if we think it is only the other person's child who falls becomes pray to a World filled with sex and violence then we are setting ourselves up for a deadly shock to our lives.