SEQUIM — For the first three weeks of his confinement, Oliver Strong had nothing to read, nobody to talk to and no relief from the round-the-clock lighting that couldn’t quite pierce the darkness of despair he felt inside.
“It was like being in a waiting room every day and not knowing what comes next,” Strong said in an interview at his Blyn-area home.
Strong, a South African who has been in the United States for about 13 years, spent 54 days in Tacoma’s Northwest Detention Center after being arrested Oct. 21 by federal agents at his home.
He and his wife, Penny — who have five children, ages 13 to 9 months, four of whom are U.S. citizens — are under a federal forced-deportation order for having stayed illegally in the United States more than a decade after their tourist visas expired.
The couple’s attorney is working to have that order replaced by a voluntary departure order that would give the Strongs a month or more to prepare to leave the country — and explore alternatives that would allow the family to stay indefinitely or even permanently.
Big first step
Being free to do so — thanks to the personal intervention of U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, who responded to a flood of e-mails, letters and phone calls sent to his offices by the family’s many supporters across the North Olympic Peninsula — is a big first step for Oliver Strong.
After his arrest, the 44-year-old bronze sculptor had been led to believe that he would never see his family again in the United States.
The horror of that day is still fresh in the mind of Strong, who is best known for crafting the metal elk that adorn the “Welcome to Sequim” signs on U.S. Highway 101.
He had been working in his sculpture shop when federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement “Fugitive Operations” agents pulled into his driveway, quickly handcuffing him and putting him in the back of their car.
