Ashcroft Says Will Halt INS Bid to Deport Thai Boy
By Dan Whitcomb
Originally published by Reuters, July 23, 2001
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft said on Monday that he would halt efforts by immigration officials to deport an HIV-infected 4-year-old Thai boy who was brought to the United States as a pawn of smugglers.
Ashcroft said at a Los Angeles press conference he would grant Phanupong Khaisri—the boy nicknamed "Got" who spent much of the last year at the center of an Elian Gonzalez-like international tug-of-war—a special "humanitarian parole" to remain in the United States.
The attorney general said he would also order the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials, who denied Khaisri asylum last year and have fought in court to deport him over the objections of local Thai activists, to begin processing a special visa for victims of human trafficking.
Khaisri's father committed suicide and his mother is a prostitute who allegedly "rented" him to members of an organized smuggling ring to use as a human prop while they posed as a vacationing family.
The INS was preparing to deport him shortly after his arrival in April of 2000 when Thai community leaders stepped in, saying he should be given the same consideration as Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who spent seven months in the middle of a sensational international custody battle.
The Thai activists won several court fights, the latest a June ruling by a federal judge that allowed Khaisri to stay in the United States at least until he got a full hearing before a U.S. Immigration judge and possibly until he turned 18.
'UNUSUAL, UNIQUE AND TRAGIC'
Ashcroft, who met earlier in the day with Khaisri, his current legal guardians and leaders of the Thai community in Los Angeles, said he was moved to act on the boy's behalf in part because he has a grandchild of about the same age.
"Absent unusual circumstances, a parent should be recognized as the appropriate person to represent a child," Ashcroft said. "In my view, however, this case presents an extremely unusual, unique and tragic circumstance that does not lend itself to the ordinary application of this important principle."
"After careful consideration I have decided to exercise the discretion accorded to me under the immigration laws and grant Got humanitarian parole," Ashcroft said.
Chanchanit Martorell, director of the Thai Community Development Center in Los Angeles, said activists were "ecstatic, elated and overjoyed" by Ashcroft's decision and called it "the day we've been waiting for."
"I think today we can basically claim victory," Martorell said. "The attorney general has shown compassion. He came to understand that this case was really always about this little boy's life."
Ashcroft's grant of "humanitarian parole" does not last indefinitely, but will protect Khaisri from deportation while INS officials process a special visa under the Human Trafficking Victims Act passed by Congress last year.
That visa, once approved, would last for three years and could give an American couple who have been battling Khaisri's paternal grandparents for custody of him a chance to adopt the boy.
In June, U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian barred Khaisri's deportation despite the Thai government's decision to grant custody to his paternal grandparents. Tevrizian said he was concerned over Khaisri's grandmother, who served 12 years in prison for heroin trafficking, and over his ability to get adequate medical treatment.
