Deseret Morning News, Saturday, December 17, 2005
No home for the holidays
Ogden woman couldn't pay for house after husband deported
By Dennis Romboy
Deseret Morning News
OGDEN — A woman who has scrambled to make ends meet since U.S. immigration authorities deported her husband may not have a home for the holidays either.
Rita Fernandez cries in front of her Ogden home. The mortgage company has foreclosed on the house and it will be sold.
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Morning News
The house Rita Fernandez and Humberto "Bert" Fernandez-Vargas shared for more than 20 years is scheduled to be sold at public auction Wednesday, just four days before Christmas. The mortgage company foreclosed on the house after she was unable to keep up the monthly payments.
"I don't know where we're going to go or what we're going to do from here," said Fernandez, whose birthday is Tuesday. "Some birthday present, huh?"
Fernandez lives with the couple's 16-year-old son, Anthony. Her mother lives across the street, but moving in with her would bring other complications. She has other family members in the area who she said have helped her all they can.
A homemaker with few job skills, Fernandez found work at a local market about six months ago. She earns $800 a month. The monthly house payment is $700. The tiny, two-bedroom home surrounded by manufacturing plants on Ogden's industrial west side is valued at about $60,000. The couple rented it before buying it in 2000.
"It's not a rich house, but I love my house. I do," she said.
Metwest Mortgage Services initiated the foreclosure, and Salt Lake-based Lundberg & Associates is handling the trustee's sale. A spokeswoman for the firm declined to talk about the property.
Fernandez earlier sold her furniture and other household items, including her artificial Christmas tree, at a yard sale to pay bills and keep food in the cupboard.
She's now thinking about selling her cherished glass vases and other collectibles.
Anthony worked part time at a restaurant but was let go after school started in the fall.
The family was featured in the recent Deseret Morning News series "Life in the Shadows," which examined illegal immigration in Utah.
The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Fernandez-Vargas in September 2003 during a routine interview on his application to become a permanent resident. Unbeknownst to him, the government had reinstated a 1981 deportation order.
Humberto Fernandez-Vargas, who was deported to Mexico, earns only $10 a week.
Tyler Sipe, Deseret Morning News
He first came to the United States as a teenager around 1970. He was deported three times, most recently in 1981. He returned in 1982, eventually settling in Ogden, where he married Rita, an American citizen, fathered a son and owned a trucking business. By all accounts, he was an upstanding and taxpaying member of the community.
Fernandez-Vargas mounted a legal challenge to his deportation that has worked its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Oral arguments are expected next spring. The outcome could clarify the rights of hundreds of thousands of longtime illegal immigrants to seek permission to remain in the United States.
Fernandez talks to her husband twice a week on the telephone. She dreaded telling him about the house, but finally did this past Wednesday. "He was really, really upset," she said.
Fernandez-Vargas, who lives in Cuauhtemoc, Mexico, recently found a job installing heaters in homes for $10 a week. Much of his income goes to rheumatoid arthritis medication.
Workers at Misc. Pickins' Mercantile where Fernandez works help her out as much as they can. Owner Lesley George is thinking about having a sale with part of the proceeds going to Fernandez.
Donations to the Fernandez family are being accepted at c/o Lesley George, P.O. Box 444, Roy, UT 84067 or by calling 801-334-6345.
© 2005 - 2014 Weber County Forum™ -- All Rights Reserved
8 comments:
This is not making sense. I know several people who have emigrated to this country and have married American citizens, and the immigration and citizenship process is tiresome, but really rather easy for spouses.
Went to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services page to check this out, and sure enough, they have the question: How do I help my relative become a permanent resident of the United States?
Clicked on it and it downloaded a PDF which says, among other things:
If you want to help a relative immigrate, start the process by filing a Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative. The I-130 is available on our website at uscis.gov. Sometimes the I-130 can be combined with a permanent resident application by the relative as discussed below.
and...
The law gives special standing to a U.S. citizen’s husband or wife, unmarried children under 21, and parents.
• There is no waiting list for immigration for these relatives.
• The Department of State will invite them to apply for an immigrant visa as soon as we approve your petition. In some cases, the petition can be filed outside the U.S., directly at the U.S. Consulate.
Plus, he should be naturalized by now, anyway. I am really wondering why it was so difficult for him, when there are people who come to the US and even achieve full citizenship in a relatively short period of time.
Am thinking there must be more to this one.
Dian, I do not know the details, but perhaps it was because the didn't start the paper work before he was deported?
Does any one have and exact address and time when this auction is going to happen?
If there's one thing I know, it's that the INS takes NO prisoners, especially these days. How on earth has 3 deportations gone without somebody doing something before now? It's a shame, but as I said, the INS takes NO prisoners.
Something else really bothers me here, and that's a $700 per month house payment on a $60,000 house. Homes in this price range are the first to go to foreclosure, and that's because of the following:
First is the Grant program, that aids the buyer with downpayment and closing costs and pre-paids....Neighborhood Gold and other programs are set up to help a cash strapped buyer, but one who qualifies for the mortgage payment, get into a home. Then there's the new FHA loans, and even a few other quasi-conventional loans, wherein the buyer can borrow damned near 100% of the purchase price. Once those two fiancial aspects have been cleared, the buyer has a house. The problem is that if things go South, the buyer can walk and loose next to nothing, except for his or her credit rating and whatever amount has been paid toward the mortgage, which is usually not very much if it's early in the game. The buyer should be paying, if all things are doen upfront by a quality lender, about $8.00 per thousand per month for the loan. In this case, take the $60,000, add the CC and pre-paids, say 7K to 8K and times the $68,000 by 8. The monthly payment should be no more than $544.00 monthly, and that includes taxes and insurance. Somebody really got to this couple on the Lender's side.
I've seen many immigrants taken advantage of in these situations, where they pay $900 to $1000 per month for an 80-90 thousand dollar house. Buyers HAVE to find a good realtor who can stear them to a good, up front lender, or what just happened in Roy will be more common place than it already is.
The lender, incidentally, will start the bidding at what's owed them and sell the house for that amount. If nobody bids, the lender will buy it and then put it up for sale for a bunch higher through whatever brokerage they deal with. I wonder what the mortgage is, as I'd bet the ranch that's it's more than $60,000, even though the house is valued at that price.
Let me see if I have this right.
We had a stable family, owning a home, paying a mortgrage and other taxes, raising kids and running a small business. Following the deportation, we have lost a small business, a mortgage is in forclosure, a stable family has been disrupted, and a wife and mother are about to become homeless and go on welfare to live.
I need a Compassionate Conservative to explain to me how "the people" have gained on this exchange.
Curm
I know this is not Pee Wee's doing, but you just gotta know he is smiling over it. He has a history of wanting to rid Ogden of all the poor and brown people in town.
I am looking forward to the forthcoming explanation from one of our dearly beloved compasionate conservatives. I am sure it will be very logical and legal. Maybe not ethical, but legal for sure.
"Legal" of course is what all the bastards hide behind.
Re-reading my post brought to light a big mistake. I said that buyers need to find a good realtor to "stear" them to an up front lender, or words to that effect. "Stear, and I even spelled it wrong, is not what we realtors do. That is against the law, the regs, everything. We, as realtors may "suggest" the lenders who are above board, but we can never "steer" buyers anywhere. That's a no-no and I apologize for that error.
Lenders with so scrupples will absolutely take advatnage of buyers who go it alone and who have just arrived in our country. They can pack a loan with yields, etc. that you wouldn't believe. I think that that's what's happened here. These poor people bought a house that was worth about 60K and by the time the lender was doen with them, the mortgage was probably around 75-80K, with a ton of money needed for closing costs, pre-paids, etc. It's sad when that happens, because it is that that is the cause of so many foreclosures, those damnnable high monthly payments that include all the crap packs on top of the purchase price, and these people have nobody there to help em out.
Sorry about the mis-use of words. Long day, or something like that.
This does sound like a tragic situation and I in no way want to diminish that.
In other recent articles in the Standard, Desnews and Trib. I could have sworn that they gave more information about the exact reason that he was deported. The fact that he had been deported 3 times and entered the country illegally 4 times was not the only reasons. I thought I remembered that fact that he had lied about that past on his most recent application and that was a determining factor in his deportation.
I am not sure what exactly his appeal that is going to the SC is but someone with more skills in googling might be able to find some of those older articles.
I do love how people can say someone who broke the law is not a criminal.
Main Entry: criminal
Function: noun
1 : one who has committed a crime
2 : a person who has been convicted of a crime.
Main Entry: crime
Pronunciation: 'krIm
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin crimen accusation, reproach, crime; probably akin to Latin cernere to sift, determine
1 : an act or the commission of an act that is forbidden or the omission of a duty that is commanded by a public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law; especially : a gross violation of law
2 : a grave offense especially against morality
3 : criminal activity [efforts to fight crime]
4 : something reprehensible, foolish, or disgraceful [it's a crime to waste good food]
While I will not argue with anyone about whether this particular guy should have been deported, to say he is not a criminal is simply a LIE. He did something that was illegal but is not a criminal? Come on.
The problem may very well be with the law. But that is a different issue.
New comments are not allowed.