From the outside, the one-story brick rambler in Falls Church gives every sign of suburban normality: bikes and toys in the driveway, a soccer ball in the front yard, a bag of fertilizer propped against a wall, a tall evergreen shading a minivan.
But inside, a family lives in fear, dreading a knock on the door like the one last week that led to the arrest by immigration agents of the family's breadwinner.
Militca, 6, with her father Branislav Djordjevic, 48, an emigre who faces deportation. "I'm so afraid for my kids," said his wife, Dragana Vasiljevic.
(Family Photo)
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Branislav Djordjevic, 48, who emigrated from Yugoslavia in 1991 and earned a doctorate in physics from Michigan State University, and who is employed as a software engineer at Verizon in Arlington County, was picked up shortly after 5 a.m. July 30 for deportation after his appeal of a long-standing political asylum claim was denied.
Although Djordjevic had pending motions on the asylum decision, as well as approval for a temporary work visa, agents of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, locked him up at their district office in Arlington, then sent him to the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Stafford County, where he is being held without bond.
"For me, this is all deja vu," said his distraught wife, Dragana Vasiljevic, 45, who is caring for the couple's two small children and a disabled elderly uncle, who are U.S. citizens. "It happened to my grandfather, it happened to my father and now it's happening to my husband," she said, sobbing, as she told her story yesterday in the family den. Vasiljevic said her grandfather was arrested by Yugoslavia's communist government after World War II and was never seen again. Her father, now deceased, was once jailed for several months for telling a political joke, she said. And she worries that she, too, may be picked up for deportation since she is in the same legal predicament as her husband.
"I'm so afraid for my kids," she said. "I'm so afraid for my uncle. Can they take my kids away?"
Michael Gilhooly, a spokesman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at its regional office in Vermont, said Djordjevic was picked up as part of a long-running "absconder initiative" aimed at people who evade deportation orders. He said Djordjevic was supposed to leave the country by Jan. 16 after his asylum claim was denied. "We're enforcing the judge's final order of removal," Gilhooly said.
Djordjevic's current attorney, Douglas P. Wachholz of Arlington, said his client is a victim of "ineffective assistance" from two previous immigration attorneys, one of whom dropped the case without notification and failed to inform Djordjevic that his asylum request had been denied until it was too late to appeal.
But the case also reflects the sometimes capricious nature of immigration enforcement, Wachholz said, especially because Djordjevic had pending motions before the Board of Immigration Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, and had been approved last year for an H-1B visa. Once issued by a U.S. consulate in the former Yugoslavia, this visa would allow Djordjevic and his wife to live and work in the United States for up to six years, during which time they could pursue an adjustment to permanent legal immigrant status.
Wachholz said that when he asked immigration officials why, under those circumstances, his client had been arrested, "they just said it was basically the luck of the draw." The attorney said he was told that agents had pulled out files of people subject to deportation and that "Doctor Djordjevic isn't very lucky."
"It's extraordinarily unusual for someone who has two active cases, and especially someone who has a high-level job and is not remotely a risk of flight or terrorism or any other kind of risk, to be apprehended," Wachholz said. "With 10 million illegal immigrants out there . . . I don't know why, of all people, they would choose to pick him up and not release him."
Jim Moody, a former congressman from Wisconsin who has taken an interest in the case, said he suspects that the arrest reflects a broader immigration crackdown, even though there is no sign of a resumption of the workplace raids that occasionally netted illegal immigrants in the 1990s. "I've just never seen an atmosphere that's so repressive for people who are trying to comply with the law," he said. "This captures something that is happening now, mostly below the radar screen."
Wachholz said that because of the previous lawyer's failings, Djordjevic did not find out about that order until after the deadline. He then wrote immigration authorities on his own to request more time to appeal, or at least to extend the date of his voluntary departure.
"This country saved the life of my daughter, who was born 3 months premature," weighed less than two pounds and still needs specialized care for a weak respiratory system, he wrote. "I hope you understand that this problem is the matter of life and death."
Wachholz said there was no reply.
The arrest of her husband has left Vasiljevic an emotional wreck. She frequently bursts into tears, and her hands tremble as she shows photos of her husband, their son Marko, 4, and daughter Militca, 6.
"The kids don't know anything yet," she said. "They think Daddy is sleeping at work. . . . The most difficult thing for me is to keep smiling in front of the kids."
She fears another knock on her door: "Every night, I am afraid they will come for me."
