wfn.org | Newsline: BVS volunteer from Germany is detained for visa lapse

[CoBNews <CoBNews@brethren.org>]

Newsline: Church of the Brethren News Service,

>News Director Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford,

>800-323-8039 ext. 260, cobnews@brethren.org

>BVS VOLUNTEER FROM GERMANY IS DETAINED FOR

>VISA LAPSE

(May 6, 2010) Elgin, IL -- A young German man, Florian Koch,

who has been serving in the United States through Brethren Volunteer

Service (BVS), was detained for more than a week by immigration

>authorities in April.

A request to extend his visa had been denied and BVS was in the

process of filing a motion to reconsider the visa denial, when Koch

was detained while vacationing in Florida by bus.

The volunteer was detained on April 19 when those on the bus he was

traveling in were checked by immigration officials. He was held at a

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) transitional detention

center in Pompano Beach, in the greater Miami area.

On April 28 he was released under voluntary departure status, after

the Church of the Brethren retained an immigration attorney and

posted his bond. He now is legally authorized to stay in the country

for 60 days in order to finish up his time in the United States.

During his time in detention with ICE, Koch was briefly threatened

with transferral to another detention center in an undisclosed location.

He was taken to the Miami airport along with a group of some 150

other detainees to be put on a flight--most probably to Louisiana, BVS

learned. In the end, however, the ICE kept him in Florida until his

>release last Wednesday.

Koch has been volunteering at Samaritan House in Atlanta, Ga., an

organization that serves homeless men and women through

employment programs and a restaurant called Café 458. He came to

BVS through EIRENE, a German volunteer organization that regularly

places 12-15 volunteers each year through BVS and has a strong

historical connection with the Church of the Brethren, which was one

of its three founding organizations in 1957 along with the Mennonites

and the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Staff of BVS, EIRENE, Samaritan House, and the Church of the

Brethren; board members of the Community of Hospitality, the

organization providing housing to Koch in Atlanta; and Koch's parents

>all worked diligently for his release.

On learning of Koch's detention, BVS director Dan McFadden flew

to Miami arriving on April 23 to work personally to gain his release.

He and Community of Hospitality board members worked to locate

and retain an immigration attorney in the Miami area. Also advocates

in Georgia were in touch with members of Congress about his case.

McFadden kept in touch with Koch through daily telephone calls, met

with him when the detention center allowed visitors over the weekend,

and was present to receive Koch on his release and accompanied him

>back to Atlanta.

In Germany, EIRENE director Ralf Ziegler and Koch's parents

advocated for his release with the US consulate in Frankfurt, and the

German consulate in Miami. Church of the Brethren general secretary

Stan Noffsinger alerted National Council of Churches leaders to the

case and personally went to the ICE offices in Chicago to post the bond.

BVS and its international volunteers have not experienced such legal

repercussions before on issues of immigration, according to McFadden.

Although in recent months several other international volunteers with

BVS have been denied visa extensions, they have continued to serve in

the United States while appeals are in process.

BVS will be reviewing its procedures for visas for international

>volunteers, Noffsinger said.

"While Florian had a host of witnesses and advocates working on his

behalf within the system, thousands remain in detention, often without

advocates," Noffsinger noted. "What is our role as a church to befriend

the stranger in our midst, to visit and accompany the imprisoned, and to

seek fair and just actions? This incident puts the onus on us to be

informed and involved out of our own concern for our sister and brother

>human beings."

The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination committed to

continuing the work of Jesus peacefully and simply, and to living out its

faith in community. The denomination is based in the Anabaptist and

Pietist faith traditions and is one of the three Historic Peace Churches.

It celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2008. It counts some 125,000

members across the United States and Puerto Rico, and has missions and

sister churches in Nigeria, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Indi a.

># # #

>For more information contact:

>Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

>Director of News Services

>Church of the Brethren

>1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120

>800-323-8039 ext. 260

>cobnews@brethren.org