Matthew Miller

mrmiller@lsj.com

Oscar Castaneda can’t work. Not legally.

He is an expert in web-based geographic information systems, geo-spatial content management systems, distributed database systems, employed by Michigan State University for 16 years.

But he’s also a Guatemalan citizen. His work permit expired in May and he lost his job shortly afterward. His efforts to procure a green card appear to be stalled. He has lived legally in the U.S. for more than 20 years and is allowed to stay as long as his case is open, but he is spending his savings and feels like he’s running out of options.

If he goes, his wife, Delia, and his two daughters, Maria and Anaite, who have lived in the U.S. since they were toddlers, will have to leave as well.

“Somebody might argue that I did the wrong thing,” he said. “It’s up for discussion. But what about them? They just came with their parents.”

If Castaneda did the wrong thing, it was in not asking more questions about what seems to have been a bureaucratic blunder in his favor.

He came to the U.S. in 1993 to study at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo on a Fulbright scholarship. One of the requirements of his student visa was that he return to Guatemala after his degree was finished “and spend two years doing wonderful and beautiful things for home country,” he said.

But on a trip home during graduate school, he renewed his visa. The second document, he said, had a stamp that said what’s known as the two-year home-country physical presence requirement didn’t apply.

“No one had websites at that time,” Castaneda said. “There were a lot of rumors. People said things. I checked. Nobody really knew.”

When he finished his doctorate in 1998, he got a job offer from a firm doing contract work for Southern California Edison. He said he told them he didn’t know if he was allowed to work. His contact at the company said to send copies of his immigration documents.

“I sent my papers and next thing they produce a working visa for me and I start working,” Castaneda said. “I thought that’s fine. That’s great. It’s a big company. I assumed they know what they’re doing.”

He left California after just a few months to come to MSU. He got an H-1B visa for workers with special technical expertise. His family bought a two-story house on Ann Street with an attached garage. They joined University Reformed Church. Castaneda began coaching as a volunteer for the Capital Area Soccer League.

When that visa expired, he got an O-1 visa, reserved for individuals with extraordinary abilities or achievements. He sent one daughter to MSU and another to Alma College, paying for everything out of pocket because, as Guatemalan citizens, they couldn’t get federal student loans. He became a volunteer soccer coach for Lansing Catholic High School.

He applied for a green card in 2010. He and his family even got temporary work permits. Then the federal government realized he had never spent those two years in Guatemala and insisted on a waiver.

He applied for the waiver and got rejected, though the Guatemalan embassy wrote a letter saying it didn’t object to him staying. He appealed in January of 2012 and got a letter in February of 2013 saying that said his case had been reopened. That’s as much as he knows.

The family had to give up the house in East Lansing three years ago. He tries not to drive past it much these days. His work permits had to be renewed regularly and frequently arrived late, causing gaps in his employment. There were application fees and attorneys’ fees. When his work permit finally expired, MSU initially gave him a leave of absence, but then let him go.

“Oscar is — or was — a valued employee here,” said Justin Booth, director of Remote Sensing & GIS at MSU. “We’ve been trying to fill his shoes since he’s been gone and we’re just at a loss. We feel horrible for him.”

When the U.S. government approved Castaneda’s first H-1 visa “they made a mistake,” said Behzad Ghassemi, who is Castaneda’s attorney. “They should not have done it.”

But there is something amiss with making that situation the reason to keep out a man who is so obviously a benefit to the United States, he said.

“On the one hand, even President Obama says we need to keep all of these scientists, to attract them here,” Ghassemi said. “On the other hand, a person like Oscar, who is extremely valuable according to his colleagues, they want to send him back for two years for nothing.”

His most recent suggestion is that Castaneda start looking for advocates who might have some sway at the federal level.

“If you put some political muscle behind it, it may work,” he said.

Which is what Castaneda’s friends and acquaintances are doing.

Daniel Foster, a family friend, started an online petition at Change.org. Each signature sends automated letters to Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow and to Congressman Mike Rogers, and, as of Tuesday night, it had almost 1,900 signatures.

“He’s just gone way out of his way to be involved in the community,” Foster said, and it feels like “foolish bureaucracy getting in the way of a good thing, good for our country, good for our region.”

Castaneda acknowledges that he could simply go back, to put in the two years, to hope for a return. But it’s a decision that would disrupt his daughters’ lives. They’re in their early 20s now. If the family went back to Guatemala, they couldn’t simply return to the U.S. if and when he did.

“It’s this sense of uprooting and this sense of being kicked out of the place that you love,” he said, “the sense of unfairness that a set of rules that nobody understands is screwing you up and not giving you a chance to say ‘This is my issue, and that’s why I’m in this situation.’”

If he gets the waiver, if he’s allowed to stay, then they all can.

He has a glimmer of hope. On Tuesday afternoon, he got a call from Congressman Mike Rogers’ office.

The woman on the phone “said they want to write a letter.”

The petition

To see the petition supporting Oscar Castaneda’s efforts to stay in the United States, go to: www.change.org/p/support-justice-for-oscar-castaneda-help-him-keep-contributing-to-the-u-s-tech-sector