Student who almost was deported faces an uncertain future

Associated Press

TIFFIN, Ohio

A German man who was brought to the United States as a child and then threatened with deportation just before his high school graduation is about to finish college.

Yet, Manuel Bartsch does not have a Social Security number or a driver’s license and still faces an uncertain future.

Bartsch’s life was turned upside down when he was arrested in December 2005 and jailed for more than two weeks after immigration officials discovered that the step-grandfather who brought Bartsch to the United States eight years earlier never completed paperwork to make his stay legal.

The case sparked a groundswell of support from friends and neighbors in the small northwest Ohio community of Pandora, where Bartsch attended high school, and eventually garnered attention far beyond Ohio. Deportation hearings were halted when a judge intervened.

Bartsch, 24, will graduate Sunday from Heidelberg University with a bachelor’s degree in political science.

He told The Blade that he isn’t sure what’s next.

“I would love to contribute to this country, give back to it,” he said. “I just don’t understand why they would educate people in my situation and deport them back and let other countries reap the benefits of the education system here. That’s just the biggest thing that startles me about it all.”

David Leopold, a Cleveland immigration attorney who has helped Bartsch since he was first jailed, said the government has dropped its case against him. But he remains in a legal limbo unless and until Congress changes the law to enable people like Bartsch to apply for citizenship.

“The good news is they’re not pursuing him in terms of removing him,” Leopold told the newspaper. “The bad news is there’s no status. He’s not in a position to put himself on a pathway to compliance, which he really wants to do.”

Bartsch traveled from Germany to Ohio in 1997 on a 90-day visa with a U.S. citizen, Toby Deal, who took custody of Bartsch in Germany when Bartsch’s grandmother died. Deal never adopted him nor processed his immigration papers in the U.S.

Heidelberg professor David Hogan said Bartsch is one of the best students he’s taught “in terms of brilliance, work ethic, personal qualities.”

“He’s very charismatic. He has everything going for him,” Hogan said.