Happy Ending

Roy Huerta got up
at 2 a.m. yesterday, drove to Tijuana and brought his wife Manuela and
their six children back to L.A. to stay, thereby ending a frustrating,
10-year, across-the-border separation.

Roy and Manuela were
married here in 1947. One day in 1949 they took a trip to Tijuana. At
the border on the way back they were asked the usual questions.

Roy had no trouble. He was born in Johnstown, Pa., and served three years in the Army. Manuela, born in Zacatecas, Mex., panicked and gave conflicting answers. She was detained and accused of entering this country illegally.

Later,
she compounded her apparent guilt by ignoring, out of fear, a summons
to a hearing. She was convicted of perjury and deported under the McCarran Act.

FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS Roy, 39, a cook at the DuZeff's
restaurant on Sunset Blvd., has made a pilgrimage each weekend to
Tijuana to be with his family. He took along groceries, clothes, and
gifts for the children, the sixth of which was born there.

The case was first reported here in 1957. Ridley Billick, manager of the Spring St. restaurant in which Roy then worked, was trying to correct the injustice.

About two months later a reader, Fay C. Rosenblatt,
inquired about the case, which disturbed her. A phone call to Roy
disclosed that the situation was unchanged, which was reported here.

But Francis H. Ohswaldt,
deputy district director of immigration, saw the column and phoned. It
appeared to him that Roy and Manuela could be reunited under Public Law
85-316, in effect since 1957, if they could meet the conditions, which
apparently they could. The sad thing, he said, was that they didn't
know they were eligible for this relief for more than a year.

Ohswaldt
was put in touch with Roy, and the wheels began to turn. There was the
interminable chore of filing applications with the American consul in
Tijuana and assembling of birth and other records. Meanwhile,
immigration officials at SanYsidro were alerted to expedite the case.

For several weeks all the necessary papers were on file except one from Zacatecas police department, giving proof that Manuela had no police record. Last week the letter came through.

Then
came the processing of the records by the immigration people to satisfy
the requirements of the law. It was just another case among scores of
similar cases, but by this time they were taking a benevolent interest.
Today the happy, grateful Huerta family is staying with friends,
meanwhile house hunting.