A True Believer In Immigrants

If enough critics hear illegal immigrants' personal stories of struggle, Hoyos said, "they will understand."

When he says that, Hoyos is referring to a chapter in his own biography. In 2002, guerrillas with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia kidnapped one of his brothers, a national politician who remains missing. Hoyos keeps a low profile during infrequent visits to Colombia, fearing he might also be targeted.

"So now you understand why I fight for freedom for immigrants," he said. "Every person has his own bad nights and nightmares that we don't know."

Social Butterfly

The eighth of 12 children born to two school principals, Hoyos grew up in a town near Cali, Colombia, surrounded by sugar cane fields. He said he was a fair student, strong athlete and a social butterfly. His dance moves made him a hit at quinceañeras . But church did not interest him. He was the only one of his brothers who wasn't an altar boy.

Francisco Hoyos said his brother always had deep concern for the needy and a gift for getting things done. As a teenager, he organized parties, parades and beauty contests, producing donations from businesses whose managers he had befriended.

During a religious mountain retreat when Hoyos was 19, a priest told him he had a calling. A year later, he entered the seminary in Bogota.

In 1989, he came to work for one year in the Arlington Diocese and stayed for three. Five years later, after launching several community groups and serving two churches, he moved to Holy Family Catholic Church in Dale City, becoming the first Latino priest to head a parish in the diocese. He was appointed to direct the Spanish Apostolate last summer.

Early on, Hoyos heard horror stories from Salvadoran parishioners, many of them illegal immigrants displaced by brutal warfare in their country. One family invited him to attend the funeral of a relative killed in El Salvador. There, he said, a group of people begged him for help with their postwar sorrows, treating him "like I was a Messiah."

El Salvador became a mission for Hoyos in a way his homeland could not. He contacted El Diario de Hoy, a major San Salvador newspaper, and proposed a column on peace, love and forgiveness. Soon radio and television stations were calling. His writing now appears in two Salvadoran papers and in Washington Hispanic, which publishes 55,000 copies weekly.

"However difficult it is for you, it is important that you smile at life," Hoyos wrote in an April column for Nuevas Raices, a 14,000-circulation newspaper in the Shenandoah Valley and central Virginia. He finished, "Before you see a rainbow, it has to rain!"

Hoyos visits El Salvador several times a year to deliver money and supplies, preach in stadiums and confer with President Elias Antonio Saca. His nonprofit organization has funded community centers and a maternity ward. His fellow Colombians tell him that his Spanish has taken on a Salvadoran accent.

Immigration Activism

Hoyos has been the "most active player in the human aspect to immigration," Salvadoran Ambassador Rene A. Leon said.

But when it comes to illegal immigrants, Hoyos acknowledged that victories have been few. He counts among them subtle attitude shifts toward his ideas by some politicians -- such as Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who backed a strict House immigration proposal but who also recently nominated Hoyos for a Prince of Asturias Concord Award, a Spanish prize given to those who battle poverty and injustice. In a nomination letter, Davis cited Hoyos's quest for immigration reform and his dream of seeing North, South and Central America united into "one America."

Hoyos said another success is temporary protected status for Salvadorans -- a program that gives some immigrants from disaster- or war-torn countries a renewable one-year U.S. work and residency permit, which he lobbied for. But even that is only a partial victory: He has also come to see it as a curse that gives immigrants the chance to stay in the United States long enough to set down roots but not to stay for good.

When a procession in front of the Capitol began at this month's rally, Hoyos took a spot in the middle. He waved a small American flag and licked a coconut popsicle.

During a lull in chanting about halfway through the march, Hoyos started one of his own.

"We want justice!" he said loudly in Spanish, prompting a few marchers to join in. Their voices quickly died down.

Hoyos was unfazed. The faces around him, he noted, were young -- a good sign, he said, for a growing movement.

"I am satisfecho ," he said, using the Spanish word for "satisfied" as he walked down Independence Avenue after the march. "Mission accomplished. For now."