U.S. Immigration plans to deport soccer star

Foster McCune will play Division I soccer at Georgetown University this fall. Matt and Ben Di Rosa, twins from Washington’s Chevy Chase neighbourhood, will play for the University of Maryland.

On Monday night, they stood with other members of their elite Bethesda Soccer Club outside Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Northwest Washington, protesting the arrest and pending deportation of a beloved teammate: Lizandro Claros Saravia.

Claros Saravia, 19, who had a scholarship to play college soccer in North Carolina, was detained along with his older brother, Diego, in Baltimore on Friday following one of their regular check-ins with immigration officials.

They entered the United States illegally in 2009, fleeing violence in their native El Salvador. Lizandro Claros Saravia graduated from Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg, Md., this past spring and was planning to attend the two-year Louisburg College in North Carolina on a soccer scholarship this fall.

“He’s one of the hardest-working people on our team,” Matt Di Rosa said at the protest, which drew about 50 people, including family, teammates and immigration advocates. “He has a bright future, and that’s something he actively sought.”

Diego Claros Saravia, 22, graduated from high school a few years ago and works in a car repair shop.

Neither brother has a criminal record, said Nick Katz, senior manager of legal services at the immigration advocacy organization CASA de Maryland, who is representing the pair.

They would not have been priorities for deportation under the Obama administration, according to a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But President Donald Trump’s administration has made clear that any undocumented immigrant is vulnerable to deportation, and there has been a steady increase in the number of people detained after otherwise routine check-ins, advocates say.

The brothers, who were detained by immigration officers when they arrived in the United States, were issued final removal orders by an immigration judge in November 2012, but were released pursuant to an order of supervision, ICE spokesman Matthew Bourke said.

They were both granted a stay of removal in 2013. But their two subsequent applications for stays were denied. Since 2016, Bourke said, ICE deportation officers have instructed the brothers to purchase tickets for departure.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Katz said. “These are the kids who we want to stay.” referenced his status as a studentathlete or depict his football skill or ability if they were posted to a nonmonetized account. De La Haye chose not to accept the conditions of the waiver and has therefore been ruled ineligible to compete in NCAA-sanctioned competition. UCF Athletics wishes him the best in his future endeavours.”

In a YouTube video posted Monday, De La Haye called the news “unbelievable” and said he was “torn apart inside.”

“Every time I step into that compliance building, I hear nothing but bad news,” said De La Haye, a marketing major who previously had said he was sending the money made from advertising back home to his family. “I’m ruled ineligible because I refuse to demonetize my videos, something that I’ve worked so hard for. Something that I have put blood, sweat and tears into. Something that I eat, sleep, breathe about ... ”

The NCAA released a statement saying the kickoff specialist could have kept making the YouTube videos so long as he didn’t mention his status as a football player. NCAA bylaw 12.4.4 states that an athlete “may establish his or her own business, provided the student-athlete’s name, photograph, appearance or athletics reputation are not used to promote the business.”