Jobs Americans Won’t Do. Jill Stewart is in the LA Weekly with an absolutely insane story about a former sex slave who served 20 years in prison for covering up the murder (which neighbors committed) of her enslaver.
Maria Suarez today is a salaried, part-time counselor at About Face, a Koreatown-based counseling program for convicted sex felons under court order to get help, and a sought-after public speaker respected as a woman who has lived through a personal hell and understands the minds of abusers.
But while she has overcome hurdles so extreme and memories so dark that a woman with less fight might have lost her mind, Suarez’s most impossible battle may unfold in the next few weeks.
She and her pro bono lawyers at the Los Angeles offices of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) are challenging federal laws that require she be sent back to Mexico, a country she barely remembers. On May 7, her special T-visa expires.
The Christian Science Monitor published a long piece on Suarez a few weeks ago, and the story is harrowing. And even if she gets an unconditional pardon from Gov. Schwarzenegger, she's likely to be booted back to Mexico.
[Hit and Run]
Here’s yet another case of gross injustice in the legal system. I hadn’t heard about this before, but it seems to me from reading the case that Ms. Suarez should not only be pardoned, but given a formal apology. California really needs more people like her.
With that in mind, the Governor’s website has a page of contact information. I’ve heard that politicians pay the most attention to handwritten letters.
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