A
federal immigration case against a local union organizer came to a
close last month. Mexican national José Cobián, known
to friends by his assumed name José Luis Mendoza, was allowed
to leave the United States on his own rather than be forcibly deported.
Cobián, a union organizer for the Pacific Northwest Regional
Council of Carpenters, pled guilty to passport fraud last September
and spent two weeks in jail. Then for almost a year, he remained in
the United States while his deportation case moved through a series
of court appearances. He was unable to legally work, but he and his
family were maintained by donations from union co-workers. Cobián
was able to sell his house in Molalla.
On Aug. 24, a federal judge gave him a deadline of Aug. 31 to leave
the country. His wife and two U.S.-born children had left earlier
to stay with her parents in Tampico.
Cobían told the Labor Press he planned to oversee shipment
of the family’s belongings, and then return to Mexico to look
for work.
“Unless the law changes,” Cobián said, “I
don’t think I’ll ever be able to come back.”
“I hate to see him go,” said Carpenters organizer Cliff
Puckett, a former co-worker who attended the final court appearance.
“For all intents and purposes he was just an honest human being
trying to provide for his family.”
