Spelling Out Sadness in the Immigration Debate
Kunal Sah, center, with parents in front of their Utah motel.
May 8, 2007 — -- The story itself starts simply enough: Boy spells. Boy spells well. Boy advances to national spelling bee.
But then the story takes a twist: Boy's parents get deported.
For Kunal Sah, a 13-year-old eighth grader at Green River High School who will participate this month for the second straight year in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C., it's also his story, one that spells D-E-J-E-C-T-E-D.
Kunal's parents, Ken and Sarita Sah, were deported to India last July after living legally in the United States for 16 years.
The Sah's story starts in 1990. Like so many modern-day immigrants, Sah sailed to this country on the tide of education on a visa to pursue higher studies. When his education entry visa expired, Sah says, on the recommendation of a professor, he sought the counsel of an attorney in California to secure legal status and start working.
Sah says as a newcomer to the states he was unfamiliar with the immigration process and that he just wanted to start working. His attorney filed an application for both the Sahs, who, citing violence in their home province in India, were requesting political asylum. (The New York Times reported that Ken Sah's asylum application stated that he had been active in a group committed to Hindu nationalism and that he could be targeted by Muslims if he returned to India.)
"Within two weeks, I got the work permit and was happy to work here," Sah says in a phone interview from Delhi. "I had finished school and was ready to start surviving."
Their son, Kunal, was born in 1993 in California -- making him a U.S. citizen. In 1997, the family purchased a motel in Green River, Utah, a town in the eastern part of the state, with a population less than 1,000 people.
In 2000, the Sahs' asylum case came up for review and federal officials argued that their request for political asylum was no longer valid. Subsequent appeals and attempts at gaining lawful residency were denied. Sah also sought a visa as an entrepreneur--
