From DEPORTATION CAMP to the NATIONAL FLAG, He becam a US Citizen

       After the arrests, the deportation orders, the foreclosed properties and the shuttered restaurants, Magnus Duruji still smiles. He does admit to having cried sometimes in the detention cells. He admits to frustration with the U.S. government. But without the due process that the U.S. Constitution provides, he says quickly, he would not have had the chance to be in a U.S. District Courtroom Downtown yesterday.

     There, Magistrate Judge Norah McCann King looked over the 51 petitioners from 27 countries. She told them that this was the happiest part of her job. She asked them to introduce themselves before they took the oath of citizenship. People from Somalia, Ukraine, Ghana and Sudan stood up. Then it was the man from Nigeria’s turn. He was wearing a dark suit with an American flag as a pocket square. He smiled. “I am Magnus Odunze Duruji,” he said. “I am glad and proud to be an American.” He had never come close to this point before without being thrown into prison.

     Duruji, now 52, came to the United States to attend Ohio Dominican University in 1982. It was illegal at the time for people on a student visa to work. He needed money, though, so he took a job at the old Jai Lai restaurant on Olentangy River Road. Immigration agents raided the restaurant in 1983 and arrested Duruji. His deportation was ordered but delayed for a few months. Authorities never followed up. In the next 14 years, Duruji received undergraduate and graduate degrees, married an American, had children and became the owner of a home and rental properties. He worked as a chef at the Cap City Fine Diner and Bar on Olentangy River Road.

     He decided in 1997 to try to clear up his immigration status and become an American citizen. He applied first for permanent-resident status. A government review of his record turned up the old deportation order. The law he had violated was no longer in force. Still, agents rearrested him, planning to deport him. That’s when the attention came. Cameron Mitchell, the restaurant entrepreneur and owner of Cap City, held a rally on the Statehouse lawn. Gov. John Kasich, then a U.S. congressman, and other Ohio representatives worked with immigration officials behind the scenes.

     In prison, Duruji said, God guided him to write his own petition to challenge his detention. Magistrate Judge King, the same person who presided yesterday, accepted that petition. U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley ordered him released soon afterward. Months of negotiation led the government to make him a permanent resident in 2001. That was a beginning of a new American dream. But life didn’t exactly become easy. Those rental properties he owned went into foreclosure while he was fighting deportation. He was diagnosed with and then beat colon cancer. He scrounged up enough money to open three restaurants, but had to close them.
“I got overwhelmed,” he said.

     One of his four children died in 2008 after E. coli poisoning went untreated and caused internal bleeding. In some ways, Duruji and his family are in the same rough shape he was in as a young immigrant, he said. He’s doing what he can to help support everyone. He has one main job and works several on the side. His family lives in a Pickerington duplex. “Just trying to build myself back up,” he said. He reapplied for citizenship a couple of years ago. He’d like to get into government work. He thinks he’d have an interesting take on immigration policy.

     Yesterday morning, some people who have been with him from the beginning showed up to support him. His wife, Christina Duruji, was there. “It’s an emotional day,” she said. Stacey Connaughton, vice president of corporate affairs for Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, represented Mitchell, who was out of town. Connaughton had been at that rally all those years ago. “He’s an inspiration,” she said. “We’re proud of Magnus.” A few minutes after Duruji introduced himself to the magistrate, he took the oath of citizenship. He renounced all “allegiance and fidelity” to the place where he was once a citizen and swore to support and defend the Constitution and other laws of the United States. He spoke briefly one on one with King and thanked her.

Then he walked out of the courthouse, a proud American.

“This is what I fought for,” he said.


http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/02/23/american-dream.html

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Posted: at 23-02-2012 11:33 AM (13 years ago) | Gistmaniac

Wow...that's great! But since 1982? aw many yrs be dat? Na wa oooh. America na heaven? congrats sha

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Posted: at 23-02-2012 02:18 PM (13 years ago) | Upcoming

 

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Posted: at 10-03-2012 11:09 AM (13 years ago) | Gistmaniac