Life Sucks

Marshals transferred Devia to St. John. Physicians recommended that he be prescribed two drugs, but the marshals agreed to only one. Physicians noted that Devia would need a follow-up at a neurosurgery clinic to monitor the infection and to discuss a replacement for the missing bone flap that had left his brain unprotected but for a thin layer of scalp.

Devia says he spent his six hospital-bound weeks considering his situation. He says he had already dismissed one court-appointed attorney for being unresponsive to his requests. He says Patrick D'Arcy, his second attorney, wasn't much better.

Then D'Arcy told him that the government was offering a plea agreement that would get him out of prison right away.

He took the deal, pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana and more than 5 kilograms of cocaine. Prosecutors offered Devia a sentence of time served.

That didn't mean he could return to Molina's house and pick up his studies at UMKC. Part of the deal was immediate deportation.

Released from CCA custody, Devia was transferred to Caldwell County Detention Center an hour north of Kansas City in rural Kingston, Missouri.

He was afraid that if he returned to Colombia, he'd once again be targeted by communist rebels. He wanted to fight the deportation order. On December 4, 2006, Devia was escorted into a small office at the Department of Homeland Security near Kansas City International Airport to try to convince federal officials that sending him home to Colombia would put his life in danger.

The asylum officer dispatched from Chicago listened as Devia and his immigration attorney, Kristy Cuevas, explained his family's persecution by FARC guerrillas. They spent the afternoon answering follow-up questions from bureaucrats in Illinois.

A month later, Cuevas had good news for Molina. The asylum office had determined that Devia did have a "credible fear of persecution or torture" if he returned to his home country. Still, the final decision would be up to an immigration judge who would preside over a February trial via video link from Chicago.

Two days before the immigration trial, Molina drove Devia's now-2-year-old son, Germain Jr., to Caldwell County. In the gravel parking lot, Molina touched up her lip gloss and readjusted a new black-and-red shirt that showed so much cleavage, it earned her a reprimand from jail administrators. In the visiting room, she lifted up the toddler at Devia's window. Germain Jr. babbled into the phone and kissed his dad through the glass.

The tone of the visit turned somber. Devia's prospects for staying in the States didn't look good.

He couldn't petition for political asylum because he'd been convicted of a felony.

The next-best alternative was a limbo status called "withholding of removal," which would allow Devia to stay and work in the United States. But he wouldn't be eligible for permanent citizenship, and if he ever left the country, he wouldn't be allowed to return. Instead of convincing the judge that he could face danger in his home country, Devia would have to prove that his persecution was "probable."

If that didn't work, Cuevas would ask the judge to grant protection under the Convention Against Torture — an international treaty adopted by the United Nations in 1984. But that was an even tougher sell. Devia would have to prove that it was "more likely than not" that he would be harmed in Colombia. Very few petitioners meet that standard.

As Molina and Devia spoke on the phone that bridged the glass, one thing was clear: The dent in his right temple is as big as a golf ball.

Molina told him she was having trouble raising the final $800 of the $1,400 she needed to pay Cuevas. They discussed whether they should forgo more legal assistance in a lost cause and start saving up some money for Plan B: a coyote to get Devia back across the border.

Two days later, the trial didn't take long. The judge denied all of Devia's claims but wished Devia well.

Speaking to the Pitch by phone from an immigration holding facility in Kansas City the day after the deportation ruling, Devia said he didn't know what he would do once he got back. Molina, Germain Jr. and his mother would follow him to South America in coming weeks, but living in Colombia wouldn't be safe.

Devia said he would try to call a cousin who may still live in Cali when he landed. He will arrive with $70 in his pocket. One of his first tasks will be to hire a bodyguard.