Stopping deportation of Iowa City pastor a long shot

IOWA CITY - The legal procedure required to halt deportation of an Iowa City pastor is 'extremely rare,” according to his attorney.

Max Villatoro, 41, was arrested March 3 as part of a national sweep of more than 2,000 unauthorized immigrants convicted of crimes. Villatoro was convicted in 1999 of drunken driving and tampering with records. Since then, he's gotten married, fathered four children and become a Mennonite pastor with a Spanish-speaking congregation in Iowa City.

More than 25,000 people nationwide have signed a petition trying to stop his deportation to Honduras.

'Right now, we're requesting a stay of removal,” said Villatoro's attorney, Dan Vondra, of Iowa City. 'It's an act of mercy.”

Villatoro, being held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Eldora, came to the United States in 1995, Vondra said.

Four years later, Villatoro was convicted in Johnson County of drunken driving and in Muscatine County of tampering with records for using a false ID to get a driver's license. Villatoro was sentenced to two years' probation for the records charge, an aggravated misdemeanor. The drunken driving charge is no longer listed on Iowa Courts Online, but is in FBI reports included in the deportation file, Vondra said.

In the early 2000s, Villatoro applied for temporary protective status available to Hondurans in the United States, but was denied because of his two convictions. One misdemeanor would not likely have disqualified him, Vondra said.

'A lawyer would have tried to get one of those pleaded down,” Vondra said.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services granted Villatoro a work permit in 2005 or 2006, while his case was pending, Vondra said.

'If ICE was doing their job, they should have noticed this (the convictions) in 1999,” he said. 'He might have had a better case back then.”

Max and Gloria Villatoro, 33, lived in Muscatine until 2009 when they moved their family to Iowa City to start a Spanish-speaking congregation. Their children, Anthony, 15, Edna, 13, Angela, 10, and Aileen, 7, are U.S. citizens.

The federal government notified Villatoro in 2013 he would be deported, a decision the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in July.

A stay of removal, if granted, could allow Villatoro to stay in the United States for a week, a month or years, Vondra said. When Anthony Villatoro turns 21, he could apply for legal permanent residency for his father, provided Gloria Villatoro has her legal permanent status by that time.

But a deportation stay is a long shot: 'They are extremely rare,” Vondra said.

One of the arguments Vondra has used is that Villatoro, with no support network in Honduras, would be a target for kidnapping by criminals seeking ransom. Often deportees arrive in their native country with just a 40-pound suitcase.

Gloria Villatoro, a Mexico native living legally in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, would not want to travel to Honduras because she might have trouble getting back, Vondra said.

Vondra thinks ICE will rule on the request within a week or two, although national scrutiny of Villatoro's plight might delay the decision.

Meanwhile, Gloria Villatoro will go back to her job Friday as a housekeeper at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. She had been using vacation time since her husband's arrest.

'It's going to be harder because my husband used to get off work at 3 (p.m.) so he could be with the girls,” she said. 'Now I need to find child care.”