More Immigrants Seeking Asylum Cite Gang Violence

But asylum claims are hardly an easy route to legalization: Only 721 Salvadorans, Hondurans and Guatemalans were granted asylum for any reason in fiscal 2005.

U.S. law requires that an applicant prove his fear of violence is credible and that the threat is based on his race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. Immigration judges have frequently ruled against applicants who were victims of gangs because of bad luck or who have faced conscription by a gang simply because they were young and male.

But some judges have been amenable to more nuanced arguments.

Last year, an immigration judge based in Arlington County granted asylum to a 14-year-old Salvadoran boy whose father had a dispute with gang members. After the father died, gang members began harassing the boy -- at one point beating him so badly they broke his arm, according to the boy's attorney, Christina Wilkes of the D.C.-based immigrant assistance center Ayuda.

"The judge found that my client was persecuted based on belonging to his family and that this constituted membership in a 'particular social group' protected under asylum law," Wilkes said. The boy now lives with an uncle in Northern Virginia.

Several lawyers also have argued that someone who faces retaliation for refusing to join a gang for religious reasons or because he opposes the gang's values is being persecuted based on a political view and is therefore eligible for asylum. Wilkes, who also represents Hernandez, said she is hoping to argue that in his case.

Former gang members who worry that they will be killed as punishment for defecting sometimes have been recognized as a protected group by immigration judges. But those judges are often reluctant to grant asylum to former members, opting instead for a less-generous form of relief known as "withdrawal of removal."

Those granted withdrawal of removal cannot receive federal assistance or apply for permanent residency. The decision permits U.S. authorities to deport immigrants to someplace other than their home country. In practice, however, they are allowed to remain in the United States indefinitely.

That was relief enough for attorney Jason Dzubow's client, a 29-year-old construction worker who faced deportation back to El Salvador after he was picked up for driving while intoxicated in Virginia.

During an interview in Dzubow's presence, the construction worker, who said he was fearful of being identified by name, said he grew up in a neighborhood of the city of San Miguel that was so dominated by gangs that the corpses of their victims would remain on the street because no one dared move them. He said he was forced to join MS-13 when he was a teenager but fled to the District when gang members handed him a gun and ordered him to kill a cousin belonging to the rival Mara 18 gang.

The construction worker, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has two U.S.-born children, had since tried to cover a large "1" and "3" tattooed on his right and left shoulders with new tattoos of snarling panthers. But he was terrified that other MS-13 members on his deportation flight would see through the ruse and realize he had tried to renounce the gang -- a virtual death sentence.

When the judge ruled that he could stay in the United States, his wife recalled, "it was almost like he couldn't breathe."

"It was incredible," he agreed. "I felt like I was reborn."