UPDATE: Granger restaurant owner deported, spokesman says
GRANGER — UPDATE: Roberto Beristiain was deported Tuesday night, spokesman for his family Adam M. Ansari said in a release.
Beristain owns Eddie's Steak Shed in Granger.
Joe Dits, with our reporting partners at the South Bend Tribune, tells us attorneys from across the country have been helping Beristain.
Beristain's family has argued he was denied due process in 2000 when he first received his deportation order. Beristain was picked up by federal immigration officials last month.
"Attorneys for Beristain, which include multiple law firms and organizations across the country, have stated they will continue to fight on behalf of Roberto, and will pursue all available legal and political remedies to bring Roberto back and correct the mistake immigration officials created nearly two decades ago," Ansari said in the release.
Beristain was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Indianapolis in March.
An attorney for Beristain, Jason Flora, who is based in Indianapolis, in a March interview said that Beristain was doing a yearly check-in with ICE. Flora says Beristain has a work permit, drivers license, social security information, pays taxes and was in the process of obtaining an immigrant visa.
In February, President Donald Trump directed officials to be more aggressive in arresting and deporting anyone who is in the U.S. illegally.
According to Flora, Roberto was issued a deportation order in 2000, after he and and his wife were stopped at the Canadian border on a trip to Niagara Falls. Beristain didn't have papers to legally be in the country and was detained in Batavia, N.Y. His wife Helen Beristain, in a March interview, said she hired an attorney and paid a bond.
After that, Flora says a Federal Immigration Judge ordered Beristain to voluntarily deport himself to Mexico within the next 60 days. Helen Beristain says she was pregnant with one of her daughters at the time, and her husband did not want to leave her alone.
Flora says Roberto Beristain was later issued a removal order, which means ICE had the right to deport to him. He has been under the supervision of Immigration and Customs Enforcement since then.
Helen Beristian came to the U.S. from Greece when she was 10. Roberto Beristain came from Mexico 19 years ago.
