Frank Magori came to this country legally, and he paid taxes on what little income he’s earned. The Government came to Frank and asked him to adopt an infant and provide a loving home for a US citizen with serious health problems. He accepted the request, which forced him to leave school rendering his student visa obsolete. For eight years the Government has denied him the work authorization necessary to allow him to earn an income and provide for his son. As a result, Frank and his son were evicted from their home and are forced to live in a hotel using food stamps at taxpayer expense.

Swiss Air employed Frank as the head of its Cargo Department in Tanzania until the company’s 2001 bankruptcy forced him to accept a severance package. In September 2001, Frank came to the US to get a graduate degree and then return home to Tanzania. Upon his arrival in Michigan he arranged to get an international student visa, so that he could enroll in courses at a community college in Kalamazoo, MI.

In 2003, the Child Protective Services (CPS) in Michigan contacted Frank and informed him that he had a cousin in the area who was the father of a new baby boy. Unfortunately, the cousin and his American girlfriend had such severe drug addictions that the baby was born with a number of serious health issues, and CPS was forced to remove him from his parents’ custody.

Despite the challenges, Frank willingly accepted the state’s request to take custody of the baby while CPS worked to rehabilitate the parents. After the parents failed to comply with efforts by state authorities to regain custody, their parental rights were terminated and Frank legally adopted the boy on October 30, 2007. Frank and his son subsequently moved to Massachusetts after the biological parents made a series of threats toward Frank.

The son’s medical concerns included fetal alcohol syndrome, asthma, extreme ADHD, cleft pallet and several other serious issues that required one-on-one care from Frank. The time-intensive nature of his son’s treatment forced Frank to leave school to care for him. But Frank never entertained the idea of sending the boy back to CPS because “My son needs to know that he has someone in his life that loves him and will always be there for him. I am the only Father he’s ever known, if I sent him back to CPS that could have ruined his life.”

When Frank left school his student visa became obsolete, making him ineligible for a work permit. This forced him to provide for his son by selling property he owned in Tanzania, which has since been spent on living expenses and health insurance co-payments for his son’s medication.

In the last eight years Frank has met with eight separate immigration attorneys, and his congressional representatives, Congressman John Tierney, and Senator Scott Brown for advice on how to obtain work authorization so he can earn a living to provide for his son. Each person that has reviewed his case has told him that there is no legal remedy. Attorneys in Senator Brown’s office determined that Frank’s best option was to seek public assistance from the state of Massachusetts.

“All I need is work permit,” Frank says. “Then I can take care of my son without asking others for help. Instead we were evicted from our home in Massachusetts and the state is paying for us to live in a hotel in Bedford, MA. Our hotel room only has a microwave and a refrigerator too small for perishables so it limits what groceries we can buy. I haven’t had lunch or dinner in two days, and last night for the first time in eight years I didn’t know how I was going to feed my son. If it was just me I would go back to Tanzania and start over, but I can’t leave my son here, and he could not survive on the quality of healthcare available in Tanzania. My son did not ask for this, he is a citizen of the United States, he does not deserve this.”