Zimbabwe family waits in immigration limbo

KIRKLAND, Wash. -- It wasn't supposed to be this way.

When Ayoob Siddick, a successful businessman in his native Zimbabwe, and his family decided to come to the U.S., the plan was to get his business off the ground, buy a house, put the four children through school and college, and settle into the American dream.

Five years later, while three of the kids are in college and they have a Kirkland rental house, their future is in the hands of an immigration judge who will hear their case in March.

The family hangs in immigration limbo with no real visa status, awaiting approval of their request for political asylum.

Along the way they've received what can charitably be called questionable legal advice, they've fallen through the cracks of a Byzantine immigration system, and they have watched from afar as their native country spiraled downward into civil unrest, making return impossible.

But talk to Ayoob, and he finds an upside.

"We've been very fortunate," he says. "The American people have been really great, rallying behind us."

The people he's referring to are the friends they quickly made through their kids as students at Lake Washington High School. Siddick's daughters, Salma and Maleeka, now 22 and 19 respectively, attended the school when they first arrived, and that led his wife, Amida, to volunteer there. Their older son, Mason, 18, then enrolled and just graduated last year, delivering an inspirational address at Commencement. Their youngest son, Rashaad, now 12, attends Rose Hill Junior High.

For the years when visa regulations prevented them from working, those friends provided material as well as moral support.

"The high school adopted our family," Siddick said. "They would come and give us food hampers, they'd collect cash."

Their friends include Chris and Ruth LeSourd and their daughters Frances and Margaux, who ran track with Salma and Maleeka. The parents, in turn, became close friends.

On more than one occasion, Siddick said, Chris LeSourd, the one-time president of the Skipper's restaurant chain, has opened not just his heart but his checkbook to help them pay their mounting legal costs.

"Here's a family who are extremely hard-working, faith-based," LeSourd said, "a family with strong family values, children who obviously have been raised right. ... they're deferential to their elders and their teachers and they're big-hearted.

"They're the kind of people we should be allowing here, not deporting."

Nancy Teteak, whose son Colin ran track with the Siddick girls and whose son Christopher played football with Mason, describes the Siddicks as a model family who never complained about how bad the situation had become in Zimbabwe.

"They were just happy to be here," Teteak said.

"I've always felt like, 'Boy, did they get the shaft when they got here!' But they were always so upbeat."

Teteak has put out the word to the Lake Washington High football booster club to see if they could raise more donations for the Siddick's costs.

"We certainly don't want to see them go back to Zimbabwe," she said.

The Siddicks don't want to go back either.

In Zimbabwe's capital Harare, Ayoob Siddick ran a steel fabrication business with 100 employees that made shipping containers and trailers, and his extended family owned a commercial farm. By African standards they were considered well-off.

But things started going downhill in the 1990s. Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe increasingly grew to be seen as corrupt and growing more autocratic, Siddick said. When they made the decision to emigrate, strikes were a routine occurrence and the country's economy was faltering.

The Siddicks were members of the Movement for Democratic Change, which is a broad-based party opposed to Mugabe's rule.

In a country that's largely Christian and African, the government classified the Siddicks as "colored," or mixed-race. They are also Muslim as a result of some of their grandparents coming from India.

"They call us Uncle Toms," Siddick said. "They don't consider us black."

The Siddicks sold their house and scaled back the business into a shipping concern, turning it over to a cousin to run. They left the country at the end of 2000.

Since then the unrest has grown worse, with Mugabe expelling foreign journalists and encouraging mobs of "indigenous" Africans to seize the land and property of the mixed-race and white minorities. Violence has become more commonplace.

Members of Siddick's extended family still in Zimbabwe have been assaulted and raped. The family farm was taken over by a mob. His cousin, the one left running the business, was arrested and a trailer seized.

Leaving Zimbabwe was not the end of their troubles, however.

While they had family in Vancouver, British Columbia, the wait to immigrate to Canada was two years, while an American attorney promised to have things taken care of within three months.

That attorney encouraged Siddick to apply for an H1-B visa, the kind commonly used by foreign-born high-tech workers.

"He didn't tell us that in order to pursue an H1-B visa you had to have a job offer from a U.S. company," Siddick said. He changed his application to an "L," or business owner's, visa.

He arrived in Vancouver in November 2000. His attorney told him he was waiting for a response from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The rest of the family arrived in Vancouver the next month. Still no word from INS.

In January, the attorney had secured visitor visas for them and told them to just come into the country. Everything would be straightened out by the time they got there.

They ended up leaving most of their luggage in Vancouver, but once they crossed the border -- eventually settling in Kirkland -- they learned they couldn't go back. And still their visas hadn't come through.

By then the kids were in school and making friends, and those friends, including the LeSourds, told them things didn't sound right.

In August they confronted their attorney, telling him, " 'You've got to tell us what's wrong because it's definitely not on,' " Ayoob Siddick recalled.

The attorney at that point admitted he hadn't even filed their applications.

Then the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks occurred, and the INS stopped considering new cases. It took three months for Siddick to get his one-year visa that allowed him to set up a business ... in Georgia. He still doesn't know why.

By the time he had reincorporated in Washington state, the money the family had brought to set up a steel business had run out, eaten away by legal fees, the need to pay $9,000 in cash for a 1991 Toyota Land Cruiser and the costs of supporting a family of six on no income and no credit history.

For much of 2002, Ayoob tried to work as a handyman and landscaper, but the money wasn't good. But they never missed a rent payment or a bill. They were determined to not damage their credit and reputation in their new home.

That meant other sacrifices, and they even went to a food bank for a while, and frequently made meals out of potatoes and little else. "Oh my God, we hate potatoes!" Amida Siddick said.

When it came time to apply for a visa extension, again there was nothing but silence from the INS for almost a year. Then one day in late 2003 Siddick got a fax from his attorney. It was a receipt for an appeal.

Siddick called the attorney and only then found out his visa extension had been denied, because he had been working as a handyman and that wasn't the steel business he'd originally intended to set up.

At that point they got another attorney, who told them they could have simultaneous filings, and encouraged them to apply for political asylum.

After waiting 150 days, they were notified they could apply for work permits while their asylum request was being processed.

It was now more than three years since they had entered the country.

Since then both Ayoob and Amida have found work. He's a manager at a Home Depot store. Amida works in the administration office at Lake Washington High where she'd volunteered all along.

Financially, things are still tight, but they are now able to pay their own way for their living expenses.

Mason, who had played cricket and rugby in Zimbabwe, gravitated toward baseball and football, eventually becoming a defensive lineman and captain of Lake Washington's Kingco champion football team. He started this fall at Carroll College in Helena, Mont., where he was given a football scholarship for almost full tuition.

At home for the break, he admits to dreaming of one day playing pro football if given the opportunity, but is realistic about his chances.

"There's still a lot about the game I haven't learned," he said.

"I really admired both his approach to the game of football and to the things that happened in his life outside of football," said his former coach at Lake Washington, Tim Tramp.

"After you get to know them a little bit there isn't anything you wouldn't do for them," Tramp said of the Siddick family. "They're just wonderful people."

Maleeka has enrolled at Bellevue Community College while working a retail job. She wants to enter their radiation therapy program.

While she was a track star who won the Coaches Award at Lake Washington, she also spent time volunteering at Evergreen Hospital Medical Center and spent some time with cancer patients there.

Rashaad wants to become a commercial pilot, while Salma has enrolled in Roosevelt University in Chicago. Work prevented her from coming home for the holidays this year.

Meanwhile, Ayoob Siddick would still like to return to the steel business. He scouts listings on eBay and Craigslist for equipment and tools, and if he finds a bargain and has the extra cash on hand, he buys it, still banking on a future in the U.S.

The family is now on its third lawyer, whom the LeSourds helped them find. They face a March 16 immigration hearing before a federal judge in Seattle.

One potential complication remains: The rules say you must apply for political asylum within your first year in the country. The Siddicks didn't apply until 2003.

"In all honesty I can't say the INS has wronged us," Siddick said. "It's attorneys who have wronged us. The INS delayed us, but that happens."

And throughout the long ordeal, his one goal has remained unchanged.

"I'm not asking for money or anything else," he said, "just the opportunity to work and prosper."