By Damian Gessel
SUNBURY — Salvacion Servano is relieved the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday granted her and her husband, Pedro, a temporary stay of deportation. But her family’s struggle isn’t over yet, she said.
“We feel we have more breathing room now, and we’re very happy about that,” she said Friday. “But we’re still hanging. We don’t yet know for sure what will happen.”
Christina DeHaven, Pedro and Salvacion Servano’s niece and the family’s unofficial spokeswoman, felt similarly.
“We’re grateful for any type of good news,” she said. “We know being given deferred action is very rare. But this is a small battle we’ve won. The war goes on.”
While Ms. DeHaven said the entire family counts the deferred action as a blessing, the Servanos must not lose sight of their ultimate goal.
“To go from getting a letter giving them 30 days and counting (to being deported to the Philippines), to being given an extra 60 days, to within a week of that being given deferred action speaks volumes,” Ms. DeHaven said. “It justifies all the support. We just hope the support will continue and people will still continue to take the same interest in this case they always have.”
Ms. DeHaven said the family’s lawyers plan to continue working with politicians to garner a private legislative bill granting the Servanos permanent U.S. citizenship. And the family itself will continue to reach out to the community to express gratitude for its support.
“We’re going to concentrate more on that than anything else,” she said. “That’s what really pushes the family forward.”
According to family attorney Gregg Cotler, the Servanos’ stay of deportation grants them an unspecified amount of time in which to continue living and working in the United States.
“At this time, we’ll not enforce the removal options while they pursue other options,” Immigrations and Customs Enforcement spokesman Michael Gilhooly said on Thursday.
