On May 22 Immigration Judge William Strasser signed a final order terminating the government’s effort to deport Róger Calero, associate editor of Perspectiva Mundial magazine and staff writer for the Militant newspaper. The order reads: “Reason for termination: Respondent is not deportable.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which now runs the country’s Immigration police and prosecutors, had been trying for six months to have Calero excluded from the country.

He was seized by immigration agents at Houston Intercontinental Airport on December 3, 2002, and thrown into detention. The government told Calero he was slated for expulsion because he had agreed to a plea bargain verdict to a charge of selling an ounce of marijuana to an undercover cop in high school in 1988. Calero had fully informed the Immigration Service of this conviction when he filed for permanent residence in 1989. The government waived his conviction and granted him a green card in 1990. His permanent residence was renewed in 2000. After Calero was arrested at the airport, immigration authorities told him that they could retroactively revoke his green card.

From detention, Calero contacted his magazine and launched a fight for his right to live and work in the U.S. With the help of the Political Rights Defense Fund, the Róger Calero Defense Committee was launched and a campaign of public protest begun. Hundreds of letters and petitions began to rain down on the immigration service demanding that Calero be released from detention and that charges against him be dropped.

Ten days after Calero’s arrest, the Immigration service announced that they had decided to release him from detention. Calero’s supporters immediately launched a national speaking tour for him to spread the word about his fight, win support, raise funds for legal and publicity expenses, and put pressure on the government to drop the case.

Calero won a wide hearing from supporters of freedom of the press, supporters of the rights of immigrants, defenders of the labor movement, and people concerned about government attacks on democratic rights.

His case was covered by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and won support from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Organizations from the Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants to the Latino Workers Organization lent their support.

Many trade unions joined the fight. Before he became a journalist, Calero had worked in the Midwest as a packinghouse worker in both Iowa and Minnesota. In South St. Paul, Minnesota, he had been part of a groundbreaking union organizing drive that won the union at Dakota Premium.

United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 789, which now represents workers at the plant, took up the fight from the beginning. Local president Bill Pearson signed on as one of the co-chairs of the defense committee and the local organized a fundraiser at the union hall that brought in over $2,000.

“His coworkers saw him as a person to turn to for help. So did I,” Pearson wrote to immigration authorities on Calero’s behalf. “Making him leave the country would be an injustice.”

Martha Olvera, co-coordinator of the Coalition for Dignity and Amnesty, Houston, Texas; Pamela Vossenas, national grievance officer of the National Writers Union; and José Oliva, director, Interfaith Workers’ Rights Center, Chicago, Illinois, serve as the other three chairpeople of the defense committee. Eugene Katz, professor, State University of New York at Stony Brook, New York, is the treasurer.

Many other unions—from District 1199J of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees in Newark, New Jersey, Calero’s home town, to the National Union of Journalists in Britain—came to his defense, sending letters to demand the charges be dropped, inviting him to speak, and making financial contributions.

Bruce Nestor, national president of the National Lawyer’s Guild, Lennox Hinds on behalf of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and many other supporters of civil liberties lent their assistance.

Calero’s tour and the campaign on his behalf won significant press coverage, especially in the Spanish language press. His story was featured on UNIVISION’s Aquí y Ahora, the most widely watched Spanish-language television news program. He was interviewed by La Opinión in Los Angeles, Hoy in New York, New York Newsday, Free Speech Radio News on the Pacifica network, and on numerous other programs.

While on tour, Calero lent his support to many other fights, from union struggles like the struggle of garment workers at Point Blank in Miami to win recognition of their union, to the strike of packinghouse workers at Tyson in Jefferson, Wisconsin, to fights against police brutality. He spoke out on behalf of others facing attack by the immigration police, like Farouk Abdel-Muhti, Sami Al-Arian, and Omar Jamal. He expressed support for five Cuban revolutionaries framed up and imprisoned in U.S. jails.

On May 1, Calero received a fax from his attorney, Claudia Slovinsky. “The good news!” the fax began.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had filed a one-sentence motion before judge Strasser in Newark to “terminate the instant Removal Proceedings predicated on the Notice to Appear dated December 3, 2002, issued in Houston, Texas.”

The DHS motion was based on two sections of the government’s immigration regulations: “The notice to appear was improvidently issued,” and “Circumstances of the case have changed after the notice was issued to such an extent that continuation is no longer in the best interest of the government.”

But what had “changed” since they grabbed Calero and initiated the deportation proceedings? The only thing that changed was that Róger Calero and supporters of his defense committee around the country and around the world fought back, loudly and publicly. They made this the wrong fight at the wrong time for the government.

On May 5, Judge Strasser ordered the DHS to give further explanation. He wanted legal justification for their motion, which had only explained the political reasons for getting out of the case.

On May 12 the DHS returned Calero’s regular permanent residence green card, good through 2010, and his Nicaraguan passport.

On May 22 judge Strasser issued the final order terminating the case.

“I want to make the gains of this fight the property of thousands of others who face attack from the government,” Calero said in announcing his intention to tour the country after his victory. “My case shows that if you pick your fight well, and wage your fight well, you can win.

“From the beginning, I have heard from many others who are caught up in the immigration system, fighting to remain here and to defend their rights,” Calero added. “They take heart from my fight and strength from my victory.”

Calero will speak before unions, immigrant rights groups, and rallies of supporters across the country, as well as internationally.  
 
 
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