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peasant
Reacher
Joined: July 24, 2004
Posts: 323
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 Posted:
Aug 08, 2005 - 08:57 AM |
 
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| Post subject: Two mixed couples from Texas. |
It appears that a competition for speaking Chinese among the non-native speakers from all over the world is being held in Beijing now. A popular TV talk show program from CCTV (on several channels but not CCTV9) invited four of them as their guests to appear on the show with many other competition participants sitting among the audience. The four are two gentlemen from USA and Germany and two girls from Japan and Russia. They spoke quite well and I was particularly impressed by that German guy. It was not just how fluent he could speak but rather the way he presented himself and his very intelligent response to the questions he was asked. The American guy is from Houston and he also gave a speech that he would be using for the competition later. It¡¯s about his personal experience. He had come to Bejing as a tourist not speaking a sentence of Chinese and when he was at Tian¡¯anmen Square, he noticed this beautiful girl smiling at him (she was in the audience. She might not look very attractive in the eyes of many Chinese). As soon as they started to talk, the girl invited him to a hot-pot restaurant with the girl taking care the bill. One thing led to the other and they got married soon. Now it appears they are still happy with each other after quite many years. The girl might fall in love with him at the first sight. Or some people might think she is a green card hunter and gold digger. If she were, she is quite successful doing this. (The girl isn¡¯t a Beijing native. It¡¯s untold if she was in Beijing at the time also a tourist, or working or studying there). We can have different opinions but the most important thing is they are still in love with each other as he was telling the audience.
In the meantime, another mixed couple was making news last week in the Chinese media. They had nothing to do with this speech competition but the couple is also in Texas. As usual, I tried to find the original sources for the story and it appears this Dallas millionaire real estate developer was fasting to prοtest his Chinese wife being deported on immigration violations. It appears this Chinese woman went to the States on a business visa and stayed there illegally. She worked as waitress and masseuse in a massage parlor where they met. (The lady pleaded no contest to a prostitution charge). They later married and the guy said this lady saved him. They just had a son but the immigration officials are going to send her back to China. The husband is trying everything possible to keep her there and one of the excuses is she will be prosecuted when back in China. That doesn¡¯t seem likely if she is telling this to a fellow Chinese, just for overstaying in USA. The Dallas newspaper didn¡¯t tell if the lady was married before she went to USA, but the lady said the reason she didn¡¯t want to come back is the government was forcing her to use IUD.
Her husband said ¡°What am I without my wife? If I have to die for my family, OK. I've got millions in life insurance, millions in assets. They'd be taken care of." If the lady is a gold digger, then she is really finding a goldmine now.
City official plans hunger strike for wife
By GRETEL C. KOVACH / The Dallas Morning News
It was an unlikely romance: A millionaire real estate developer falls madly in love with a Chinese masseuse on the verge of being deported.
Ralph Isenberg risked everything for her. His marriage of 30 years disintegrated. His best friend stopped talking to him. His adult son and daughter shunned him.
Now he says he's prepared to die for Yanhong Hu.
Mr. Isenberg, a member of Dallas' City Plan Commission, said he is planning to begin a hunger strike this week after trying everything to keep his new wife in the country.
Since they met about three years ago, he persuaded high-placed government and business leaders ¨C including U.S. Reps. Pete Sessions and Eddie Bernice Johnson and the entire Dallas City Council ¨C to write letters of support for her residency application.
But Monday, immigration officials said they would not allow Yanhong Hu, who now goes by Nicole Isenberg, to stay in the country past Aug. 15. The couple had sought a six-month extension after the birth of their daughter on July 1.
"Three-fourths of my family perished in Nazi Germany. ... I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would have to fight to keep my family together on U.S. soil," Mr. Isenberg said, choking back tears.
Doctors told the Isenbergs that the newborn, Niraya, is too young to travel to China.
Mrs. Isenberg's daughter from a previous marriage, whom Mr. Isenberg adopted, is about to start high school and may have to stay behind with the newborn in the care of their nanny as Mr. Isenberg splits his time between China and Dallas.
Immigration officials said they have been more than generous with Mrs. Isenberg, who pleaded no contest to a 2001 prostitution charge in Dallas, was incarcerated for 52 days for immigration violations and ordered deported in absentia when she missed an immigration hearing.
A statement from the Isenbergs sent to government and business leaders around the country says the misdemeanor prostitution charge, which preceded their 2004 marriage, was unfounded.
'Egregious' case
Paul Hunker III, chief counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Dallas, said Mrs. Isenberg needs four waivers for immigration law violations before the State Department can approve her application for permanent residency.
"This is really one of the most egregious cases I've seen in my 12 years as a government attorney," he said.
Mr. Sessions had lobbied for a six-month delay in her departure, citing concern for the health of the baby.
Wealth or political influence cannot be a factor in the enforcement of immigration law, but the birth of a U.S. citizen is strongly taken into consideration, Mr. Hunker said.
"Originally, the Aug. 15 date was set with the birth of their child in mind, because of a request made by their attorney," Mr. Hunker said. "If we didn't care about the child, we would have picked [Mrs. Isenberg] up and deported her."
Dallas immigration lawyer Richard Fernandez, who is not involved in the case, said American immigration authorities will often allow the parents or spouses of citizens to apply for permanent residency in the U.S. if there are no negative factors.
"Adjustment of status is a privilege, and it's in the discretion of Citizenship and Immigration Services," Mr. Fernandez said. "Generally if you're open with them, they're amenable to helping you out, especially if there is a little baby involved."
No guarantees
A last-minute reprieve seems unlikely for the Isenbergs, and Mr. Isenberg said he sometimes finds his wife pacing the house in the middle of the night with Niraya in her arms, weeping.
"Right now the baby is too young. I cannot take the baby," Mrs. Isenberg said. "And I can't leave a newborn baby here."
If Mrs. Isenberg leaves, there is no guarantee she can return, and she faces a five-year ban for being deported in absentia. The Isenbergs are willing to go to China to sort things out but want some assurance that she can return quickly.
Dallas Justice of the Peace Thomas Jones married the Isenbergs and is their baby's godfather.
"I would venture that immigration is on point legally, but there comes a time when we need to be more humane," Judge Jones said. "This is not about the mother, this is not about the father, this is about the baby ¨C a U.S. citizen, native-born U.S. citizen."
Mayor Laura Miller, who appointed Mr. Isenberg to the City Plan Commission, said she is sad for the Isenbergs, whom she described as a "really happy, loving, terrific family."
"It's very unfortunate. I wish that she could stay here and be a family," Ms. Miller said Monday when the Isenbergs' attempts for an extension collapsed.
For Mr. Isenberg, whose home is decorated with statues of Abraham Lincoln and Lady Liberty, his troubles with immigration are perplexing.
"This is just devastating to a family. I don't know what we're going to do," said Mr. Isenberg, 53. "Do I stay with my children or do I stay with my wife?"
Mrs. Isenberg, 40, originally came to the U.S. in 1999 on a business visa. Chinese authorities had forced her to use an IUD that was making her sick, she said.
"I wanted a better life. I feel more safe here," she said.
Mrs. Isenberg had an advanced engineering degree but arrived in this country unable to speak English. She worked as a waitress during 13-hour shifts for $20 a day, she said.
She didn't understand that a massage license in California was no good in Texas and was led by desperation and naivet¨¦ to a job in a Dallas bathhouse, the Isenbergs said.
But some of Mr. Isenberg's closest friends and business partners were skeptical. They feared that she was a con artist.
Dave Roberts said he had cautioned his longtime business partner and friend to move slowly with Nicole but now has no doubts about their relationship.
"She's delightful, and I don't think there's any question that she loves Ralph," he said. "This is the happiest I've ever seen him."
Stories of romance
Eventually, as Mrs. Isenberg became a regular at parties and functions, mingling with the likes of Rudy Giuliani, those with a romantic streak began to lend their support. If Mr. Isenberg ever had any suspicions about his future wife, they disappeared when she allowed him to adopt her 14-year-old daughter.
Now, people remark on the gleam in his eye. They say he looks younger, and they listen to his giddy stories about the lovebirds' Titanic moment on the prow of a New York City night cruise past the Statue of Liberty.
They were both married, unhappily, when they met, Mr. Isenberg said. He was deeply lonely and, by his own account, had spent about a million dollars on the company of women. So while some may say that Mr. Isenberg rescued his future wife from the unsavory life of a bathhouse worker, it is Mrs. Isenberg who really rescued him, he said.
"I had sold my soul to the devil. I had lost all self-respect. Everyone in the business community, City Hall, they knew I was running around on my wife. I was basically a joke," he said.
"That all ended when I met Nicole."
They wed March 13, 2004, in their living room, using attorneys as ring bearers.
In his fight for his family's future, Mr. Isenberg has assembled several 4-inch-thick binders of immigration documents. While Mozart drifted downstairs from his adopted daughter's piano lesson, Mr. Isenberg flipped through the pages, recounting what he sees as flaws in the government's proceedings.
For instance, Mrs. Isenberg said she never received notice of the immigration hearing that led to her deportation in absentia. The notice was sent to her previous attorney in California, though she had filed change of address forms after her move to Texas.
"To be forced from this country because I have a Chinese wife, and the government made a clerical error, it's not conceivable. It's not American," Mr. Isenberg said.
He intends to rent an RV and drive around the state lobbying officials to help him keep his family together. First stop: Crawford, Texas.
"What am I without my wife?" Mr. Isenberg asked. "If I have to die for my family, OK. I've got millions in life insurance, millions in assets. They'd be taken care of."
E-mail gkovach@dallasnews.com
Planning panel member to resign
Dallas: Developer's wife loses bid to delay deportation to China
12:19 AM CDT on Saturday, August 6, 2005
By GRETEL C. KOVACH / The Dallas Morning News
Ralph Isenberg, a wealthy real-estate developer who threatened a hunger strike to keep his Chinese wife from being deported, says he plans to resign from the Dallas City Plan Commission.
Mr. Isenberg said that after a frank talk with Mayor Laura Miller, who had named him to the commission, he realized it would be "the right thing to do" for the city.
He also apologized to "my family, my friends, my business associates and the citizens of Dallas" for disclosing private details of his family life.
"I was in a highly agitated state with the thought of my family being broken up," he said late Friday. "It distracted from the real issue, which is keeping a mother and her baby together."
Ms. Miller said she would be looking for a new appointee next week to fill Mr. Isenberg's position.
"Because Ralph is very busy taking care of his family, he and I have agreed that he will be leaving the City Plan Commission," Ms. Miller said.
"The whole thing is unfortunate. He is a very sweet man who has a lot of problems he has to deal with right now."
Mr. Isenberg, who said Friday that his doctors had told him not to go on a hunger strike, has been fighting his wife's immigration case since they met about three years ago in Dallas.
Nicole Isenberg, whose Chinese name is Yanhong Hu, was a former massage parlor worker who had been arrested on prostitution charges, incarcerated for immigration violations and ordered deported in absentia when she missed a hearing.
The Isenbergs have said the prostitution and immigration charges were unfounded.
They later agreed she would voluntarily leave the country by Aug. 15 and adjust her immigration status abroad, but then a doctor said their newborn was too young to travel to China.
Immigration authorities were not swayed.
"I thought that immigration control's job was to capture terrorists. I never knew that their job was to separate mothers and babies," Mr. Isenberg said Friday after receiving word that his latest request for a six-month extension had been denied.
U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions and numerous other political and business leaders had lobbied immigration officials on the Isenbergs' behalf because of their daughter, Niraya, who was born July 1.
Mr. Isenberg said he is convinced his family is being dealt with harshly because he complained that his wife was mistreated while she was incarcerated in a detention facility in Haskell, Texas.
Paul Hunker III, chief counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Dallas, said the allegation is untrue.
"The government and Ms. Isenberg had an agreement. Instead of deporting her for prostitution and fraud, we let her voluntarily leave, and she's not willing to leave," he said.
The latest rejection letter reads: "Happily, Niraya appears to be a healthy newborn. ... It does not appear to me that it would harm Niraya to travel to China." It was signed by Nuria T. Prendes, field office director of the Dallas ICE office.
Mrs. Isenberg said she was embarrassed by accounts of her personal life detailed in the media by her husband. Mr. Isenberg said that he was so distraught over his wife's reaction that he had to be hospitalized for high blood pressure and that doctors ordered him to call off plans for a hunger strike.
Mr. Isenberg vowed Friday to continue fighting to keep his family together.
"We're a family, and we remain a family. We've already had to overcome some pretty tough adversities. We are bound and determined to overcome this as well," he said.
Mr. Isenberg's two adult daughters said Friday that they were outraged their father was portraying himself as a family man. His longtime marriage to their mother disintegrated when Mr. Isenberg met Yanhong Hu.
In a letter sent to The Dallas Morning News, Rachel Isenberg Waguespack of Minneapolis and Sarah Isenberg Games of Austin said, "This is not the story of a woman being unfairly deported by Immigration but a story about a wealthy man who was unsuccessful at getting rules bent or broken for his personal benefit."
In an interview, Ms. Isenberg Games was less strident.
She said she had not shunned her father because of his relationship with Nicole. It was he who shunned her, she said, and hadn't spoken to her or her young son since October.
"I had real concerns about Nicole in the beginning," she said. "But I've always tried to support my father."
In fact, Ms. Isenberg Games said she was sympathetic to their immigration predicament.
"I can understand a person trying to fight like crazy to save what is important to him," she said. "I don't think she's a threat to society."
Mr. Isenberg said he "made mistakes" with his first family.
"I do not claim to have always been the family man I am now," he said Friday. "I concur with my daughters that they perhaps got shortchanged by their father, but that's something I have to live with."
"I am, in fact, a loving and caring father and husband today."
Mr. Hunker said he thought there was a reasonable chance the State Department would approve Mrs. Isenberg's application for permanent residency in the U.S. because she is the wife and mother of American citizens.
In the meantime, Mr. Isenberg hopes his wife can wait for her visa in another country because he fears mistreatment by Chinese authorities.
But Mrs. Isenberg has long been weary of the ordeal. "Sometimes I think, 'Oh, I'm tired, let's give up and just move to China.'
"But no," she said, "we keep fighting."
E-mail gkovach@dallasnews.com |
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Edgewood
FooSlinger
Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3909
Location: Colonial Shanghai
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| Posted:
Aug 08, 2005 - 01:48 PM |
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| The girl might fall in love with him at the first sight. Or some people might think she is a green card hunter and gold digger. If she were, she is quite successful doing this |
For once, I admit this has the ring of truth to it. She's one of the 0.1%
The second ho you mentioned though, the one with a husband on hunger strike, well she found her mark well and truly. A hit! A palpable hit! You just know she gives amazing head... |
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Conlige suspectos semper habitos |
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sweetgirl17
Reacher
Joined: Oct 02, 2003
Posts: 232
Location: Where you want me
Status: Offline
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| Posted:
Aug 08, 2005 - 10:50 PM |
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Wow, a millionaire jew sap gets taken for a ride by a 40 ye old convicted ho with bastard vrat in tow.
loved the parts about how 4/5th of her familly brought it in Auschwitz, i suppose she means blood relatives?
shes even got his blood pressure up and him staarving himself withtin 1 year. she'll be back to china, milions in the bank after a years work, beats the whack shack pay, no doubt |
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Harmony between man and woman makes sweet in life |
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