Destined for deportation, family begs ICE to let them stay in Utah


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KEARNS — A Utah family held a press conference Monday, pleading for U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement not to deport them to their homeland of El Salvador. The mother of the family said if they're forced to return, their lives would be in danger.

Speaking before a packed church house in Kearns, Ana Cañenguez said it's a miracle she was even standing there with her seven kids. She pleaded for mercy from the U.S. government.

"I know that I broke the law twice, but it was because I had no other option," Cañenguez said, addressing the crowd in Spanish.

She left El Salvador in 2003 to provide for her family, who had no money for food. In 2010, she learned about death threats against two of her sons, so she paid to have them smuggled into the United States.

"They make teenagers become gang members, and they make them kill people. I don't want to be part of that," said Erick Ramirez, one of Cañenguez's sons.

In 2011, Cañenguez's two youngest were picked up by Mexican border patrol agents. She went to Mexico and smuggled them across the border. When they got lost in the desert, she turned herself into U.S. Border Patrol agents; that's when Immigrations Custom Enforcement got involved.

Now, Cañenguez is pleading for prosecutorial discretion, a type of deferred deportation.

"ICE can use their discretion to close a case or, for lack of a better word, ‘shelve' a case of low priority for individuals who are not a public threat to this country," said said Raymi Gutierrez, a member of the Salt Lake DREAM Team.

In a statement, ICE said agents have already reviewed case denied the prosecutorial discretion. Legal experts believe the sticking point with the Cañenguez's case is the fact she entered the U.S. illegally twice.

"They automatically convert into priorities for deportation. I guess the question would be: should that be the case?" said Mark Alvarez, a Salt Lake City immigration attorney not familiar with Cañenguez's case.

Once ICE denies the deferral of deportation, the case heads to the Executive Office of Immigration Review. Unless Congress and the White House come to an agreement on immigration reform, once the Cañenguez family's appeals run out, they could be deported to El Salvador.

Two of Cañenguez's seven children were born here in the United States.

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