Your prayers are requested for Vivian and Andrzej Nowakowski and their family. Also of your charity, please drop a note to Senators Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman requesting their intervention in the case.
The case of a city man imprisoned for listing prior convictions on a green card renewal application is being reviewed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He could be freed. The review is a victory for his family, including a wife who has spent thousands of dollars and much of her time in court, writing letters, seeking help from officials and otherwise worrying since his April 23 arrest by immigration officials.
Andrzej Nowakowski, 43, of New Britain, who came to America from Poland when he was 9 years old, has a criminal history for drug convictions. As a chronic pain patient, he became addicted to oxycodone.
There was never talk of deportation when he pleaded guilty, served his time, kicked his addiction and was working and taking care of his ailing father-in-law and wife, Vivian, who needs a kidney transplant.
Health officials listed Andrzej as her caregiver on the kidney transplant list. She will lose her place on the list without a caregiver at home, which could kill her, and no one else would be as well suited to the job. Health professionals familiar with the case cite Andrzej’s experience and the couple’s shared immunity to germs.
—My whole family needs me,— Andrzej said during a phone interview Friday from the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., where he is being held. —I need to be out there for the sake of my wife. She needs me out there. I am really concerned about her health and the health of my in-laws. I will do anything to get her healthy. But they want to deport me.—
Andrzej said he still has chronic pain in his back, but he has learned to live with it.
—I don’t want to do any drugs,— he said. —My wife’s life is on the line.—
Nowakowski’s son, David Lombardo —” Andrzej raised him as his own after Vivian’s prior marriage —” is a corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps in California, awaiting an April deployment to Iraq after training other marines how to fight and survive in the field.
Although Andrzej respects the fact that —my son is a patriot,— he said what the country is doing to him and his wife is wrong.
The review could be a correction to that, and could take place at any time.
But immigration officials won’t let Andrzej out if they see him as a danger to the community —” he has no record of violence —” or as a flight risk.
Letting her husband out to care for her is a safe bet, Vivian said, because —if he does anything to screw it up, I will deport him myself.—
Jokes aside, Vivian said, —He would never skip. Where would he skip?—
Lombardo, who was home for a Thanksgiving visit to his parents’ High Street home with his fiancee, Jennifer Ramirez, noted that Andrzej was co-owner of an area family business and always paid off his car payments and taxes. —It is not like he is some drug addict with no money. He has paid his taxes, supported his family and supported his community,— Lombardo said.
Immigration officials also take into consideration such things as —disciplinary problems while incarcerated,— which does not apply to his father.
—While incarcerated he has never caused any problems,— Lombardo said. —He has been in this country for 35 years. He has done his time [for the past crimes]. None of this applies.—
Ramirez choked back tears as she explained the situation and vouched for the integrity of her soon-to-be father-in-law.
—Everyone is guilty of temptation,— she said. —This is a man who married a woman, regardless of her sickness, knowing that they couldn’t have kids, and raised David as his own. He is a good-hearted man.—
Vivian walked across the carpeted living room and hugged Jennifer.
—I want the whole family together for Christmas,— Vivian said.
She has been depressed during the fight for her husband’s freedom, especially since learning Aug. 29 she’d lost an appeal on his behalf. In addition to missing her husband and being faced with her own death, she has had to deal with the deteriorating health of her father, who was recently hospitalized for his severe heart and kidney problems.
Seeing her son and Ramirez on Thanksgiving cheered her up.
While Vivian is resigned that her fate and that of her husband —is in God’s hands,— her son hopes the officials reviewing his father’s case are able to see it for what it is.
—I am looking at this optimistically,— said Lombardo, adding that he could not believe his father had been arrested in the first place.
—He is her life partner,— he said, and will be caring for his mother and for her father at home.
A Homeland Security source in Washington, D.C., who spoke anonymously because he wasn’t authorized to comment on the case, suggested earlier this month that Vivian needs somebody to —carry the spear for her,— even after letters of support were sent from New Britain’s Common Council, the city’s legislative delegation and U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy, D-5th District.
Sources said Donald Kent, then assistant secretary of the office of legal affairs for the department, never got the materials and wasn’t the right person to receive them. Officials at the congressman’s office, however, believed his letter had merely failed to change the status of Andrzej’s deportation order.
Kent has since resigned and been replaced.
Vivian needs someone such as U.S. Sens. Chris Dodd or Joseph Lieberman, both Connecticut Democrats, Murphy or someone at the federal level to fight for her behind the scenes, the Homeland Security source said.
Immigration officials are human beings too, and can have compassion, the source said.
…
Now that her son is by her side, she has drawn renewed strength and faith in God, she said.
The family attends the Polish National Catholic Church of the Transfiguration and Our Savior.
—People with no compassion haven’t lived a hard-enough life,— Lombardo said.
Lombardo is leaving today, but plans to return at Christmas.