U.S. adoptee a stranger in his birthplace...

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U.S. adoptee a stranger in his birthplace

By Leslie Berestein

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

July 20, 2008

A man adopted by a U.S. couple when he was 6 months old has been
deported to
El Salvador after spending five years in immigration detention in Otay
Mesa
while he appealed his case.

Jess Mustanich, 29, arrived in El Salvador on July 10 after losing his
appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last spring, a
proceeding
that stemmed from a burglary conviction 11 years ago. Described by his
father as "a middle-class white kid" raised in an Anglo household,
Mustanich
learned a handful of Spanish words from Latino detainees while in
immigration detention, but is otherwise starting over as a stranger in
a
strange land.

Speaking by phone Friday from a San Salvador hotel, he described going
through customs at the airport.

"They brought out some guy, and he asked, 'Why don't you speak
Spanish?' "
Mustanich said. "I told him it was because I was adopted, and he said,
'Then
why are you here?' "

Mustanich's case is rare. But foreign adoptees occasionally land in
deportation proceedings, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, usually after getting into trouble with the law and
learning
that their parents, who brought them into the United States legally,
did not
complete the process of making them citizens.

Not long ago, ICE deported another foreign adoptee held in San Diego, a
man
adopted in 1959 from Japan when he was 1. While a 2000 law made
citizenship
virtually automatic for most adopted children brought into the United
States, it doesn't apply retroactively.

Mustanich landed in prison as a teenager after he and some friends
burglarized his father's house. His father, hoping to scare him
straight,
called the police. Jess Mustanich's resulting conviction for
residential
burglary set in motion a series of events that his father did not
imagine.

"I was trying to do the right thing for my kid," said Bill Mustanich,
61, of
San Jose. "Every time I think about this, I think about throwing up.
What am
I going to do about him now?"

Bill Mustanich, who recently retired from his job as a school adviser
for
troubled teens, said he tried on several occasions to naturalize his
son. He
and his wife adopted their son under Salvadoran law through an agency
in
1979; the couple divorced before they followed through on naturalizing
Jess.


After the dust settled, Bill Mustanich hired a family law attorney to
complete the process; his son was about 5. The attorney ran into
roadblocks,
including changes in the law and the fact that the adoption agency was
no
longer in business.

In 1988, with his son in tow, Bill Mustanich took a completed
citizenship
application to an Immigration and Naturalization Service field office
in San
Jose, he said, but they were turned away and given a phone number to
call.
Bill Mustanich said he called several times and left messages, but
never
received a reply.

Meanwhile, Jess Mustanich was growing up and he began to act out,
experimenting with alcohol and drugs and getting into trouble. Shortly
after
his 18th birthday, Jess Mustanich and several friends who had been
stealing
from their parents burglarized his father's home. The police were
called
and, Jess Mustanich was convicted of residential burglary in 1997.

Neither father nor son knew at the time that changes to immigration law
enacted the previous year had eliminated most legal relief for legal
U.S.
residents convicted of a crime.

According to immigration officials, Jess Mustanich matched the
definition of
a deportable alien, regardless of his adoption background. In 2003,
after
his release from prison, he was placed in the custody of Immigration
and
Customs Enforcement to await deportation.

"He had a criminal conviction that made him removable, and our job is
to
comply with what the judge orders," said Lauren Mack, an agency
spokeswoman
in San Diego.

At a hotel now for more than a week, Jess Mustanich isn't sure what to
do
next. His father can provide financial support, and members of a local
branch of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, of which he is a member,
have
helped get him oriented.

Bill Mustanich, who referred to ICE as "an agency out of control,"
plans to
travel to El Salvador, though he feels helpless.

"It's a country in turmoil," he said. "I am terrified about his ability
to
move around. The whole thing is just appalling."

Jess Mustanich said he would like to return home one day, but realizes
it's
unlikely. He recently bought a copy of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to
Intermediate Spanish" at a bookstore.

"It's going to take some time," he said. "Until then, I'm going to have
to
rely on hand signals."