Liberians safe from forced return, for now

Joseph Dahnweih couldn't go back.

Time had taught him that.

With an ailing wife and little hope of work in a country where eight of 10 people are unemployed, Dahnweih knew he could not survive in his native Liberia.

He'd escaped once. At 67, Dahnweih, who doubles as a grocery store clerk and gas station attendant in Glen Ellyn, wasn't sure he could manage again.

"I don't know how we can make life there," Dahnweih said softly.

Yet he and 3,600 Liberians nationwide confronted the possibility of a forced return to the West African nation by month's end.

They learned Thursday they will not have to go -- for now.

On Oct. 1, the visa protection afforded to Liberians for 16 years was to expire. President Bush delayed the looming deportation, citing political and economic turbulence in the nascent democracy. Such recognition postpones the departure until March 2009.

What this 18-month stay ultimately means for Liberia -- dogged by an 80 percent poverty rate and an attempted government toppling in July -- and Liberians scattered around the world remains unclear.

"The actual bombs and guns can cease," said Yenner Wuanti, pastor of a Liberian Fellowship Church in Wheaton. "But then to disarm people's hearts, heal the wounds and create stability of the society, along with issues of trust and confidence building, all of those things, they take a long time."

Liberia is one of seven nations afforded sanctuary.

Owing to natural disasters or political strife, U.S. officials currently open a door to immigrants from Birundi, El Salvador, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Somalia and Sudan.

The so-called temporary protected status shields them from deportation and allows them to work lawfully, two coveted guarantees at a time when visa backlogs and rampant demand within the legal immigration system compound problems outside it.

With an estimated 12 million immigrants living and working illegally nationwide, proponents of stricter controls contend such allowances are misplaced.

"It's been said the U.S. is the life boat to the world, but even overloaded life boats sink," said Dave Gorak of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration. "We just cannot continue to absorb everyone who wants to come here."

Liberia has had the designation longer than the rest.

Initially extended in 1991, the protection came two years into what the U.S. State Department calls "one of Africa's bloodiest wars."

As the violence at home persisted, killing more than 200,000 people and driving a million others into refugee camps, Liberians here saw the six- to 18-month status extended repeatedly.

President Charles Taylor -- the first African head of state accused of war crimes in an international court -- ceded power in 2003, clearing the way for a democratic election two years later. When Harvard-educated economist Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became president and Africa's first elected female leader, U.S. officials decided the visa protection was unnecessary.

Such status "is no longer warranted," a U.S. Department of Homeland Security statement read. Federal officials instead deferred the departure, allowing Liberians living with temporary visas to remain for another 18 months.

"Temporary protected status is just that. They are able to get relief in the United States until it is deemed that they can return safely," U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Marilu Cabrera said. "There shouldn't be any expectation that this is a permanent relief."

Tucked in a corner of the Wheaton College campus, in a cordoned off conference room with plush carpet, three dozen people gather in prayer.

Faith and nationality bind them.

They all are Christians.

They all are Liberians.

Here, they give thanks for the visa relief that they'd prayed for fervently.

"Those who do not believe in God call certain things luck and other things coincidence," Pastor Yenner Wuanti told the congregation he helped form four years ago. About 40 percent of Liberians are Christian, the U.S. State Department reports.

About 1,000 Liberians today live in the Chicago area. Minnesota and Rhode Island are home to the largest swells nationwide. But on Sunday evenings, many Liberians from the Western suburbs congregate for equal servings of faith and home.

Wuanti settled in Wheaton with his wife and five children seven years ago. Like some in his congregation, the 46-year-old minister relies on a temporary visa that would have expired by month's end. Liberians who came to this country as refugees or qualified for asylum are on a separate, more permanent visa track.

"It's not a matter of returning there. It's a matter of returning there now," Wuanti said. "Maybe at the end of 18 months, God is going to work something out."

Until then, Nelson Soko of Hanover Park said: "We will live one day at a time."

From its beginning, Liberia's fate has been tied to that of the United States.

This coastal country about the size of Tennessee was settled by freed slaves in 1820. Congress earmarked $100,000 at the time to help establish the republic. Such support continued through the years, flowing both ways across the Atlantic Ocean.

Wheaton residents Bill and Betty Thompson spent nearly three decades as missionaries just outside the capital city, Monrovia, named for U.S. President James Monroe. From 1953 to 1980, they watched the country long known for its strong schools develop.

Today, four years after civil war ended, schools and much of the country's infrastructure are in disrepair. Just over half the adult population can read and write. Two of the country's 53 airports have paved runways.

Liberians living in this country send about $6 million back every month.

"We've still got friends there and every communication we get, people ask for help," Bill Thompson said. "They can't find work."

Dahnweih disperses his paycheck around the world.

Two part-time jobs keep a roof overhead and food on the table for him and his wife, Ellen. Anything extra goes to the couple's six children scattered from Kentucky to Ghana and Norway.

Liberia's civil war drove them away, first to a refugee camp in the Ivory Coast and eventually, to a second-floor flat in Glen Ellyn.

For now, he says, this is home.

For now, he does not think about whether things might change by March 2009, when Dahnweih and thousands of others again could face the possibility of a forced return.

"If I know for sure I can live there in peace, I won't mind going," Dahnweih said. "We are trusting God will walk us through."