SON'S DEPORTATION DUE TODAY

WADSWORTH PARENTS HEARTBROKEN, WORRIED ABOUT YOUNG MAN

Gina Mace and Marilyn Miller

Akron Beacon Journal

When Joao Herbert gets his first taste of freedom in nearly two years today, it will be in another country.

The 22-year-old Herbert was scheduled to be deported to Brazil this morning. He hasn't been in the country of his birth since a Wadsworth couple adopted him from a Sao Paulo orphanage at the age of 8. But he is looking forward to going on with his life.

"I know God has good things in store for me," said Herbert, who in the last few weeks has been impatient to leave.

In 1997, Herbert was arrested with two friends for selling 7 ounces of marijuana to an undercover officer. All three got probation.

But because Herbert had never become a citizen, an immigration judge ordered him deported.

His parents, Nancy Saunders and Jim Herbert, don't know when they'll see their son again.

Saunders said her heart is breaking. "It's like a piece of me died. He was given to me, and I can't believe I'm losing him like this. I'm afraid he's going to be sick, and I can't be there. I can't be there if he hurts," she said.

Jim Herbert is a paraplegic and uses a wheelchair to get around. He doesn't expect to visit his son in Brazil.

"This is hard," he said. "I'm losing my son. I'm losing my child. I'm putting him in the hands of complete strangers and God and hoping things go right."

Unless Congress amends existing laws, Joao Herbert can't return to America. The deportation, ordered under the 1996 Immigration Reform Act, is for life. Herbert faces imprisonment if he tries to re-enter the United States.

His father holds out hope that the laws will change.

"People are still asking me what they can do," Jim Herbert said, "and I'm telling them they still need to write to their congressmen and senators and see if they can make a bill retroactive and try to bring him back here."

Jim Herbert said it's hard to understand a law that rips a child away from his parents. He feels that his son has paid for the crime he committed.

"The true fact is, yes, he sold drugs," Jim Herbert said. "But why does he have to pay with the rest of his life?"

Saunders said she has lost faith in the system. "They're tearing our family apart," she said.

Jim Herbert is grateful for the help he has received from the Brazilian embassy in Washington, D.C. Embassy officials have arranged to place Joao in a halfway house, where he can live and study Portuguese until he can survive on his own.

Macio Aith, a Washington correspondent for the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo, has kept the Sao Paulo community up-to-date on Joao Herbert's deportation proceedings. He said Brazilians can't believe what's happening.

"They say that since he speaks no Portuguese and has no friends in Brazil and no family that he knows of," Aith said, "what is happening is not a deportation but an eternal exile. He's being thrown out of his own country forever."

Aith, who interviewed Brazilian government officials and ordinary citizens for several stories about the deportation, said opinion there unanimously favors Joao Herbert.

"I didn't find one person who said this is a fair thing or he deserves what he is getting," Aith said. "People feel that the same country that accepted him is throwing him away."

Jim Herbert and Saunders hope their son will be all right.

"I have a lot of fear for him," Saunders said. "I'm going to pray for him every day of my life."

Added Herbert: "I'm going to believe that people down there are going to help him like they said they would. But living there is not like living in America."