Supporters try to stop deportation of family

By Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporter

KEITH THORPE / AP Penny Strong is shown with her children, from left, Kiah, 7 months; Ryan, 9; Dante, 11; Christian, 4; and Amber, 13, in front of the sign welcoming visitors to the Olympic Peninsula town of Sequim. Her husband, Oliver Strong, created the sculpture of the elk.

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SEQUIM — Hand-wrought elk sculptures stand sentry at the entrances to this town, welcoming motorists from either direction along Highway 101.

The artwork is the trademark of Oliver Strong, whose steel-and-bronze figures depicting wildlife sit outside government buildings and businesses and in gardens and parks throughout Western Washington.

In this region of the state, Strong is something of a celebrity.

But he and his wife, Penny — South African nationals and the parents of five — are also illegal immigrants. And after more than a decade in this country, they are being deported.

It is here that the Strongs' story naturally would end.

But the pending expulsion of this family has fired up this town in a powerful way.

Days after immigration officials came to their trailer home sitting on five acres on the outskirts of town to take Oliver Strong away, folks here mounted an against-all-odds campaign to try to keep the Strongs in America.

Bright yellow fliers urging, "Help Oliver and Penny Strong" appear in the windows of local gas stations, in the thrift store where the Strongs shop, at the Catholic school where their children attend classes, in restaurants and stores throughout Sequim and Port Angeles.

Friends are circulating petitions and collecting signatures — although names on a list mean nothing to immigration authorities.

Penny Strong hopes the signatures might persuade U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, to write a private bill on the family's behalf. But that is unlikely in this post-9/11 era.
 
Nevertheless, the mayor of Sequim and members of the City Council added their signatures to more than 1,000 that have been collected so far — for the principle, if nothing else.

"These are good people," said Mayor Walt Schubert, who didn't know the family before all this started. "They are contributing members of our community who have gotten caught in a legal tangle that should be able to be worked out."

Legal tug of war

The Strongs' case highlights the kind of tug of war Americans are engaged in over immigration — and over the immigrants they see as deserving of refuge in the U.S., and those they see as undeserving.

"The fact is that they didn't come here to be on the public dole," said Brian Magner, who has known the family for six years. "They provided for themselves. They are like what all of us hope to be."

Penny Strong said it was never the couple's intention to live in the U.S. illegally.

They arrived on the East Coast by sailboat in the summer of 1991, at a time when civil unrest in South Africa was at its height.

They eventually decided to settle in the temperate Northwest and Sequim, where they were told the sun shines more often than in other areas.

But without families or employers to petition on their behalf, it is almost impossible for people like the Strongs to find a way to legally live in the U.S.

In Sequim, they began making topiary garden sculptures that depicted the kind of wildlife found in their home country. They built a business around their art, selling their sculptures to places such as Universal Studios and Chicago Botanical Gardens.

But even as the Strongs became known in garden-art circles across the country, at home they tried to stay to themselves.

"We kept a low profile, and that affected our relationships with people," Penny Strong said. "We could only take friendships to a certain point. You don't want people to delve too deeply."

An issue of hardship

Jack Martin, special-projects director with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), calls Sequim's reaction to the Strongs' plight the forest-for-the-trees scenario.

"Those who are focusing on the individual cases and seeing merit in them are looking at how beautiful the tree is without looking at the bigger national interest," he said.

"When you have back-door immigration — which is what this would be — in effect you're subverting the orderly immigration process and at the same time denying opportunities or creating longer waiting lines for those who chose to abide by the rules."

While immigration officials say they place a higher priority on removing criminal immigrants and those who would do the country harm, they admit they cannot ignore cases like that of the Strongs.

"I'm sure they are good people, respected in the community. But they are also in the U.S. illegally," said Michael Milne, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The government estimates between 8 million and 12 million people live illegally in the U.S. And while the popular stereotype is of Mexican nationals who sneak across the border, more than one-third of illegal immigrants are foreigners like the Strongs who exceed their allowed time in the country or overstay on nonimmigrant visas.

Pat McCauley, who runs a local marketing firm, said she, like many who know the family, never gave a second thought to their immigration status.

"When you see people as all-American-looking as the Strongs, it's not something you think about," she said. "They are as Scandinavian-looking as they come. I don't mean for this to sound bigoted, but when they're not Hispanic or Muslim, then you don't think [that they may be illegal]."

George Behan, a spokesman for Dicks, said his office has received dozens of calls and e-mails in support of the Strongs.

Among the many hard-luck immigrant stories the congressman frequently gets, the "deserving immigrant" argument is frequently invoked, Behan said. "That bothers us a little bit," he said. "We try to help everybody when there's an issue of hardship — particularly when kids are involved."

And the issue of "deporting" American children is always a tricky one.

Four of the Strongs' five children — ages 7 months to 13 years — were born in the U.S.

And while immigration officials point out that they do not deport children born in this country, and that the parents have the option of leaving them behind with other family members or friends, the Strongs say that's not an option they would ever choose.

Yet Penny Strong knows that by leaving the country, her children will miss out on opportunities they will not have elsewhere.

Her friend McCauley asks: "If American people can adopt foreign kids, why can't American children adopt foreign parents?"

"Hoping for a miracle"

Penny Strong is unsure how the couple came to the attention of immigration officials. In 2002, while they were at a garden show in Seattle, a note was left for them at their hotel asking them to report to the Border Patrol in Port Angeles. They were placed in the system for deportation and their request for reconsideration was denied.

They then took their case to the Board of Immigration Appeals. But Penny Strong said the family never received that board's Oct. 23, 2003, rejection notice, which she now understands would have allowed them to leave the country voluntarily.

Since Oct. 24, Oliver Strong has been held at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. Left behind with their children, Penny Strong was given 45 days to pack up the family's belongings and prepare for deportation.

If the family must leave the U.S., Penny Strong is hoping they can relocate to the United Kingdom, where Oliver Strong also has citizenship.

"The days are going very fast," she said, looking around their home. "We're really hoping for a miracle."

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com