By Nancy Lofholm
Denver Post Staff Writer
Post / Shaun Stanley
Gevorg Sargsyan, left, embraces sister Meri after arriving at their Ridgway home. The two, their father and a brother were detained by immigration authorities for five weeks.
Ridgway -After five weeks in a federal detention center, four Armenians returned to an apartment filled with poinsettias, Christmas decorations, food and friends.
And there have been so many friends.
The people of Ouray County have long supported the family in its fight to gain legal residence in the U.S., an effort that has exhausted the family after six years of court battles.
Most recently, members of the Sargsyan family were taken to a detention center, where they faced the fear of deportation. A return to their native land, the family says, would endanger their lives.
But upon arriving home Friday night, there was only joy.
“I’ve been crying so long. Today, it’s happy crying,” said Susan Idinyan. Her family was stunned and weeping, surrounded by the unexpected largesse in their small apartment.
Susan’s husband Ruben, sons Hayk, 18, and Gevorg, 20, and daughter, Meri, 27, had been incarcerated by immigration authorities since Nov. 4, when they were ordered to appear in Denver because final orders had been issued for their deportation. Eldest daughter, Nvart Idinyan Noland, 30, and Susan were not taken into custody because their cases are being heard separately.
The Sargsyans were unexpectedly released Thursday after an experience behind bars that they said was traumatizing.
“They do not treat you like humans,” Meri said.
She described detention as a cold place with no privacy where they were called by numbers rather than their names. They were not allowed to touch each other during their brief visits together.
“And what you eat is like dog food, man,” Hayk told his fellow students at Ridgway High School as they gathered around him Saturday afternoon, peppering him with questions.
More than 100 people gathered in the Ridgway Town Park on Saturday to welcome the family, dissolving old rivalries between the ranching community of Ridgway and the historical mining town of Ouray. People in both communities have come together to raise more than $30,000 for the Sargsyans’ legal fees. They have written hundreds of letters, made even more phone calls, and used political connections that stretch all the way to the top tiers of the Department of Homeland Security.
Saturday at a local park, the Sargsyans thanked the community.
“I am very proud to be here,” said Ruben Sargsyan in Armenian. “We owe you everything.”
The Sargsyans maintain that if they are deported they will be persecuted and possibly killed in Armenia. The family left their homeland in 1999 after Noland had married American Vaughn Huckfeldt, who was living in Yerevan at the time.
“We don’t have enough of their kind in the world today. They are worth fighting for,” said Donna Whiskeman, who has worked on the family’s behalf since her husband, Pete Whiskeman, learned late this summer that the Sargsyans were threatened with deportation.
The Sargsyans say Huckfeldt collected money from 10 to 15 Armenian families and promised to secure visas for them. He then left for America with an eight-months pregnant Nvart. When those families didn’t get their visas, they blamed the Sargsyans. The Sargsyans sold their belongings in an effort to pay off their angry countrymen. But the Russian mafia became involved and threatened to kill the boys.
Meanwhile, Huckfeldt had brought Nvart to Ridgway, where he was abusive, according to acquaintances who say they saw him mistreat her.
Huckfeldt eventually obtained student visas to bring the rest of Nvart’s family to the United States. When Nvart filed for divorce, Huckfeldt turned them in to immigration authorities for being here on illegal visas.
Since then, the family has worked without asking for handouts or help. They have cleaned offices, managed apartments, baked, worked in restaurants and in accounting. Meri played piano at local churches. Hayk became a popular student at Ridgway High School. Gevorg attended the University of Colorado, where he had been on the dean’s list.
The family had been attempting to gain legal visas, but had been rebuffed in a tangle of complicated court hearings after their first attorney, who was later disbarred, failed to do the necessary work on their behalf.
The family is currently seeking visas as victims of human trafficking. Nvart was recently granted legal status because she is now married to an American, Max Noland. Immigration officials have said they may contest that ruling; they have until Dec. 17 to do so.
Their status still hangs in the balance, but for now, the Sargsyans and Ouray County are celebrating their freedom even as the Sargsyans say they continue to feel bad for others still detained and they have found themselves questioning their former idea of America as the land of freedom. The day they were allowed to leave detention, 45 new immigrants were being brought in.
“We cry for them too,” Meri said.
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