Undocumented immigrant who took sanctuary in New Haven church granted stay of deportation
Nury Chavarria (center) of Norwalk hugs her daughter, Lindsay Chavarria (left) and son, Elvin Martinez, in a room where she is staying with another daughter, Hayley, 9, at Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal in the Fair Haven section of New Haven during a visit on Saturday. Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media
It has been an emotional roller coaster for the 43-year-old undocumented immigrant, who for years had gotten multiple stays based on humanitarian grounds, but was told late last month to buy a one-way ticket to a country she has not seen in 24 years.
Student lawyers at the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic at the Yale Law School, led by supervisory attorney Marisol Orihuela, filed a motion for a stay before Immigration Judge Philip Verrillo Wednesday and another to reopen Chavarria’s case.
Within an hour, Verillo found the argument for a stay “so compelling” that he granted it, Orihuela said, and Chavarria’s story took another turn.