COUPLE'S ADOPTED CHILD TOLD TO LEAVE COUNTRY

The Stuart News

February 24, 1999

TAMPA - Adopted by an American couple 20 years ago, 25-year-old John Gaul III has been deported to his native Thailand.

Legislation designed to get tough on aliens who commit crimes, some forgotten paperwork and a teenage run-in with the law consigned Gaul to an uncertain future Monday with little prospect of ever returning home.

His mother, Pam Gaul, planned to fly to Bangkok today to help her son adjust to his native, yet foreign, country. She will return after two weeks to her job as a respiratory therapist. She is angry at Congress for passing the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.

"The purpose of the original legislation was to combat terrorism,'' she told the St. Petersburg Times. "It was not to tear families apart.''