Officials help delay teenager’s deportation

Associated Press

CINCINNATI

A U.S. senator and a congressman from Ohio have helped gain some time for an 18-year-old Guatemalan facing deportation to the homeland he left at age 3.

Federal immigration officials have confirmed that they will hold off for now on the deportation of Bernard Pastor, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported Wednesday. Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Steve Driehaus, both Democrats, appealed to federal authorities on Pastor’s behalf while his lawyer is working to prevent his deportation.

Pastor was arrested last week when he was unable to produce a driver’s license after a minor accident, and authorities then concluded he was in the country illegally.

Pastor, who remains in federal custody in the Morrow County jail in Mount Gilead, told the newspaper in a telephone interview that he remains in good spirits. “I’m not worried,” he said.

Pastor’s supporters say he was a model student at Cincinnati-area Reading High School and it would be unfair to deport him to a country where he has little family left.

Pastor said his father, a Pentecostal minister, told him Tuesday to continue to trust that what is happening to him is part of God’s plan.

“He said that maybe I was to be someone whose life could help other people in the future who are in the same situation,” Pastor said.

Despite the delay, the deportation order remains in place.