SEQUIM — A South African couple fighting to keep their family in the United States have exhausted their options in the judicial system, a spokesman for a Department of Homeland Security agency said Tuesday.
Oliver and Penny Strong “have been in the country illegally for a long time,” said Mike Milne, Seattle-based spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
“They have exhausted their due process in the immigration courts.”
The government is now making arrangements for them to leave the United States, he said.
But some community members are lobbying to help the Strongs and their five young children stay in Sequim, where they have lived for the past 10 years.
Oliver Strong is noteworthy for sculpting the large elk figures at the entrances to Sequim on U.S. Highway 101.
Lawmakers contacted
Friends and neighbors have contacted state legislators, members of Congress and other government leaders to generate support for the Strongs’ cause after the couple were notified last week that they had 45 days to leave the country.
Last Thursday, ICE agents came to their Gardiner-area home, took Oliver Strong into custody and transported him to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, allowing Penny Strong to stay with their children, four of whom are U.S. citizens.
The Strongs run a sculpture business from their home.
Oliver is a British citizen, and Penny is a South African citizen.
They left South Africa about 20 years ago and came to the United States on tourist visas in 1991, then settled in the Sequim area in 1994.
Their visas ran out in the early 1990s, but by that time the couple already had two young children, and returning to South Africa “was not an option,” so they stayed, Penny Strong said last week.
In 2002, the couple were taken to immigration court for overstaying their visas. They appealed to the immigration appellate court in Washington, D.C., in October 2003, trying to establish that they could remain legally in the United States, but were denied.
Notified of denied appeal
Milne said the Strongs were notified of their denied appeal and given 30 to 45 days to voluntarily leave the country.
Penny Strong said they had no word on the status of their appeal until Thursday, when her husband was arrested.
