Waiting For Aaron

Waiting For Aaron

Lowell Billings and Bonnie Ewen worry about the future of their oldest son, Korean adoptee Aaron Billings, who is currently in an INS detention facility and could be deported to Korea

By Corina Knoll

CORONADO, CALIF. — In a quaint neighborhood of homes lined with immaculate lawns, Bonnie Ewen is watering the grass in front of her brick-red house on Avenue B.

It’s a beautiful, bright Saturday afternoon. She gives a half-smile, but she’s clearly not at ease.

Her husband, Lowell Billings, is a white-bearded, forthright man who is eager to begin the interview right away, but just then, the phone rings. Bonnie answers, and by the way her eyes redden and her voice grows quiet, it’s obvious that she is speaking with her oldest son, Aaron, who is calling collect from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detention facility in San Diego.

Aaron’s voice sounds like a young kid’s. Even though he is 28 years old, it is not hard to imagine a boy calling mom and dad from summer camp. After a brief 60 seconds of conversation that doesn’t yield much in the way of information, Aaron is whisked away for lunch. The only window of opportunity to speak to him for this article has now closed, as the INS fails to answer our repeated requests for an interview.

On Sept. 15, 2000, Aaron Billings was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to sell. While serving time for this misdemeanor, an INS purge found that Aaron was not an U.S. citizen.

Since then, Aaron’s parents have wondered if their son, who has lived in the United States for most of his life, will be forced to board a plane to Korea, a land completely foreign to his American-grown soul.

In 1978, Bonnie and Lowell adopted 3-year-old Aaron from Seoul through Children’s Home Society, an adoption agency.

When Aaron’s birth certificate arrived in the mail shortly after, it read that his birth city was San Diego, Calif., where Bonnie and Lowell lived. So the couple assumed that Aaron’s immigrant status had been changed, and never thought to have Aaron naturalized to become an U.S. citizen.

“We went through a lot of processes, and we were young. I was 23,” recalls Lowell.

“We were going through a lot of excitement and a process we were not familiar with. We received this [birth certificate] from the San Diego County, which said he was born in San Diego County. So our assumption was, ‘Gee, we’ve adopted him through the Children’s Home Society, and they’ve naturalized him.’”

It was a discrepancy that was somehow overlooked throughout Aaron’s childhood.

According to his parents, Aaron was a happy kid who often had trouble realizing the consequences of his actions. He was enrolled in special education classes because of learning disabilities, and he struggled with cognitive skills and expressing language. Aaron was a hyperactive child and only understood things if he experienced them firsthand. Even as he matured, he still seemed to maintain a childlike sensibility.

“He was sort of an immature kid, kind of a Peter Pan kid that never grew up,” says Lowell.

Lowell and Bonnie realized their oldest son’s limitations and didn’t allow him certain responsibilities, including getting a driver’s license. Perhaps if they had, Aaron’s alien status would have been discovered sooner. Although inexplicably, he was issued a government ID card, an U.S. passport, a Social Security card, and was able to join the Naval Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps without ever being questioned.

His parents say Aaron went through life with a positive outlook, but his perceptions were off-key, which meant he tended to fall in with the wrong people and make some bad decisions.

“Aaron’s biggest strength was his acceptance of everyone,” says Lowell. “It didn’t matter whether you were tall, short, skinny or fat, Asian American, African American or Hispanic. It didn’t matter whether you were handicapped or able-bodied, Aaron just wanted to be everybody’s friend.

“He didn’t pass judgment on people, and as a result, he’d often associate himself with people who maybe didn’t have real strong core values. He was just very needy in some sense in terms of friendships and relationships, and he didn’t question context,” says Lowell.

After high school, Aaron held various odd jobs and took some classes at a community college before heading to Idaho on a whim.

“He took off on his own, and we kind of let him go. Figuring he’s 21, we can’t rope him in the rest of his life,” says Lowell. “That’s when things started to fall apart.”

It wasn’t until a year had passed when Aaron finally called his parents to let them know he had served 11 months in an Arizona state prison and needed a ride home. According to Lowell, Aaron had hitchhiked with a man who turned out to be driving a stolen vehicle. The two were pulled over and the driver escaped, but Aaron stayed, pleaded guilty and went to prison. While incarcerated, the INS did a random search for illegal aliens, but once again, Aaron’s citizenship was never questioned.

After being picked up by Bonnie and Lowell, Aaron lived at home with his parents, worked part-time and often hung out at Ocean Beach. It was there that he sold marijuana to an undercover police officer. At first considered a misdemeanor, the charge became more serious once the INS identified Aaron as an illegal alien.

On April 2, 2001, Aaron was transferred from the San Diego County jail to the INS detention facility, where he has since been known as Sung Ho Kwon, the Korean name given to him by the staff at the orphanage.

According to one of Aaron’s attorneys, Carl Balediata, the misdemeanor conviction became an aggravated felony because of Aaron’s alien status. This is due to the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which has harsh repercussions for non-citizens who commit crimes. The act expanded the definition of aggravated felony to include drug possession and made detention mandatory for an alien with a criminal conviction.

Intended to close loopholes in past immigration policies and practices, the act has had an unexpected side effect on other international adoptees. Brazilian adoptee Joao Herbert and Thai adoptee John Gaul, two men who grew up in the United States but were never naturalized, each committed a felony and were deported to their birth countries within the last few years.

Even the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, a law that allows adopted children to forego naturalization and automatically become U.S. citizens, does not protect Aaron because the act is not retroactive.

Aaron’s case went to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but the case was dismissed because the 1996 act took away the federal court’s jurisdiction in contested deportation cases.

Still, despite the case’s dismissal last October, Aaron has remained at the detention facility because the Korean Consulate General’s office has not yet complied with the INS.

In an excerpt from a letter dated Aug. 29, 2002, Consul Bon Yul Kou responded to the INS request for travel documents with the following:

“[Aaron] does not speak Korean, nor does he have any Korean family, relatives, or contacts. In light of his situation, I respectfully request your office to reconsider this case solely on humanitarian grounds. [Aaron’s] story has raised a deep concern from the Korean American community for his future and well-being; your compassion and goodwill in this matter would be greatly appreciated by many.”

In violation of the law, Aaron has been held at the detention facility for over 90 days since his final appeal. His attorneys are now attempting to have him released under what is called an “order of supervision.” This permits him to be released into the custody of his parents, but without the rights of a citizen. Among other things, Aaron would be unable to vote, attend school or travel outside the country. The alternatives are becoming a lifer at the detention center or, if the Korean Consulate General complies, deportation.

In the next few weeks, Aaron’s attorneys will submit documents to the INS that attempt to prove Aaron’s moral character and that his release is in the best interest of his family. It may prove difficult for the courts, however, to look past Aaron’s criminal record.

“It’s a toss-up,” says Balediata of his chances. “A 50-50 shot.”

Lowell and Bonnie are angry at the system, but ultimately they blame themselves.

“It’s really us,” says Lowell. “We didn’t close the immigration. Aaron couldn’t do it as a young child, and we didn’t finalize that piece of the adoption process.”

Bonnie and Lowell have hundreds of photos of their two sons during camping trips in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, vacations in Mexico, time spent at their house in Arizona, surfing and fishing.

Aaron’s younger brother, Greg, 20, remembers how his older brother was always willing to spend time with him, despite their eight-year age difference.

“I didn’t really realize until maybe later in high school how valuable Aaron was to me growing up, and how lucky I was to have a brother who would drop anything he was doing to come play with me,” says Greg.

Now a junior at the University of Arizona, Greg sees Aaron about once a month. The desolate surroundings at the detention facility and the tense circumstances, however, put a strain on their meetings.

“It’s hard to talk about what he’s doing on the inside because it’s the same old story every time. Nothing goes on in there,” says Greg. “We try to be very optimistic with him, not that he has a problem staying optimistic, but I know at times he gets scared.

“The past few times my dad’s kind of tried to be very straightforward with him, and it’s really hard to see him trying to cope with that,” says Greg.

“We’ve talked about if it happens, then we’ll be spending vacations over there in Korea,” says Bonnie.

Greg, who has spent summers in Mexico and is fluent in Spanish, has even thought about moving to Mexico so that Aaron, who could not return to the United States if deported but could immigrate to Mexico, could live with him and be on the same continent as their parents.

For almost two years, Bonnie and Lowell have been spending their Saturdays at the detention facility.

“It’s like going to church,” says Bonnie matter-of-factly. “It’s something that we need to do.

“One thing I don’t do too much is talk about him anymore with friends,” says Bonnie, who is a third-grade teacher. “Because they just — they just can’t conceive of what’s happening. And I’m tired of talking about it, and it just keeps going on. So I just don’t mention it anymore. I guess my way of dealing with it is to just deal with it. Just deal with it.”

Lowell, a superintendent with the Chula Vista Elementary School District, chooses to speak about his son as much as possible, making connections with anyone and everyone, hoping it will open some doorways.

“I’ve never run into anything in life, an obstacle or barrier, that I couldn’t get through,” says Lowell. “I grew up in tenement housing in Compton. I had dreams for myself. My parents were not college graduates. So life has always been about opportunities and the ability to work through things.”

Lowell and Bonnie should have had Aaron naturalized. Aaron should have steered clear of illegal activity. Children’s Home Society should have issued the correct birth certificate.

These are the harsh “should haves” that are easy to point out now that the consequences have been made manifest.

But who doesn’t feel for parents who are about to lose their son. Or for a man who might be left on the shores of a foreign country, forced to experience abandonment all over again.

For now, it is an unsure time for Aaron and his family, who fear the worst but pray for the best.

“No matter what happens, he’s not dead, he’s not sick, he’s not terminally ill,” says Lowell. “He’s got an education, he’s healthy, he’s an able-bodied person, so you can look at it in that context.

“The selfish part is we don’t want him to go because he’s ours.”