Back in December 2007 – about two weeks before Christmas – Brownsville attorney Louis Sorola was making his his rounds at the courthouse rounds and walked into District Judge Migdalia Lopez's District 197th Court.
Before he left, he found himself drafted to represent the interest of a seven -year-old child left by her father in the Philippines.Needing someone to represent the child's interests in court in a divorce case, Lopez tapped Sorola as he peeked inside the courtroom as an ad litem guardian of the child's interest.
Little did he know that as a result of that appointment he would make a 17,200-mile round trip to Manila, the Philippines, and reunite the little girl with her desperate mother just in time for Christmas.
According to the mother Paula Flores, of Harlingen, having her daughter at home after a year and a half absence was the best Christmas present she could have gotten.
"We were waiting at the mall in Harlingen when Mr. Sorola appeared with Ann and we kissed and hugged her," Flores recalled recently. "It was the best Christmas present ever."
The child and her two sisters were the object of a bitter custody fight between their mother and father and when Flores had to return to the United States within one year of being outside the country as required of green-card immigration holders, her ex-husband followed, but for some unexplained reason left one their daughters – Ann – behind.
Now, as the divorce proceedings stalled over her absence, Lopez ordered Sorola to go to the Philippines and retrieve her.
Sorola – whose first marriage had also soured and was in the mend from that experience – had his mother drive him to San Antonio to board a plane for the islands there while she stayed and visited with family at the Alamo City.
After an 18-hour flight over the Pacific, he alighted in Manila and set out with a two-week U.S. State Dept. passport in search of the girl. He found her in the care of a woman who ran a private school and who loved the girl dearly.
According to the mother, she and her former husband had met in the Philippines when he was there to deliver the ashes of his previous wife, another Filipina he had met in Philadelphia, to her family. He had met her when she was a maid in a hotel there and married her. The woman had allegedly committed suicide a few years later and when the man went to the Philippines, he met and Paula, then 18.
They were granted a fiance visa in 1995 and she returned to the United States, and they settled in Harlingen.
Then, in 2006, her husband sent her back to the Philippines with the three girls and he stayed in the United States. When he joined them, she realized that she would be breaking the rules for green-card eligibility if she stayed longer, and he sent her back to Harlingen and he stayed there with the three girls.
By this time she had learned that he had no plans to get her naturalized or to take her back to the United States. When he returned from the Philippines, he had two of the girls, but not Ann, whom he had left behind. She filed for divorce that year and the case ended up in Lopez's court.
And that's when Sorola peeked into her courtroom and was tagged to bring her back.
"I am happy to say that Ann is now a sophomore at UT-Austin and has received an internship to work at Google headquarters in California," Sorola said. "Reuniting the family for Christmas was one of the most personally rewarding things I had ever done."
According to the mother, she and her former husband had met in the Philippines when he was there to deliver the ashes of his previous wife, another Filipina he had met in Philadelphia, to her family. He had met her when she was a maid in a hotel there and married her. The woman had allegedly committed suicide a few years later and when the man went to the Philippines, he met and Paula, then 18.
They were granted a fiance visa in 1995 and she returned to the United States, and they settled in Harlingen.
Then, in 2006, her husband sent her back to the Philippines with the three girls and he stayed in the United States. When he joined them, she realized that she would be breaking the rules for green-card eligibility if she stayed longer, and he sent her back to Harlingen and he stayed there with the three girls.
By this time she had learned that he had no plans to get her naturalized or to take her back to the United States. When he returned from the Philippines, he had two of the girls, but not Ann, whom he had left behind. She filed for divorce that year and the case ended up in Lopez's court.
And that's when Sorola peeked into her courtroom and was tagged to bring her back.
"I am happy to say that Ann is now a sophomore at UT-Austin and has received an internship to work at Google headquarters in California," Sorola said. "Reuniting the family for Christmas was one of the most personally rewarding things I had ever done."
3 comments:
Where's jerry?
Sounds like a Rockefeller story. Write about REAL hardships about real people
"reach the river" sound like a wanna be white. Most immigrants come here to start a new and productive life with their families, que pendejo catering to the gringos...
Tijuana, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada don't have a river and the coyotes don't have a travel map and they don't ask you if you want to cross a river or a desert.
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