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Belarus halts student trips...
Last Modified: Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 3:19 p.m. The government of Belarus on Thursday halted future humanitarian trips to the United States following an international furor that unfolded when a teenager visiting Petaluma for the summer refused to return home.
The ban on travel for so-called respite programs for children living in the path of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster will impact about 1,400 children nationwide.
Oleg Kravchenko, chargé d'affaires at the embassy in Washington, said barring a guarantee from the U.S. that such incident doesn't happen again, all such trips will be stopped.
Host families in the Petaluma-based Chernobyl Children's Project reacted with disappointment. And they criticized Manuel and Debra Zapata of Petaluma, who are sponsoring 16-year-old Tanya Kazyra.
A lawyer for Kazyra called the decision punitive and unnecessary.
Immigration attorney Christopher Kerosky said Kazyra has a legal right to remain in the country as well as permission from her guardian.
The Chernobyl Childrens Project, founded two years after the disaster in 1991, is one of dozens of similar programs across the country. Children visit for six weeks each summer and stay with host families handle medical needs and show them American culture.
Kazyra visited the Zapatas nine summers and was in her last year of eligibility, a Belarusina official said.
She has said the Zapatas had become her true family and that her parents were abusive.
Post a comment View all comments on this topic. desirousofu says...
Why couldnt she go home and wait till the time was right?
1,400 kids cant come back because of one selfish brat.
Thats how the Belarus government rolls son. Mess with the bull you get the horn. Simple.
I see another Elian Gonzalez-type raid in the near future. Better make it sooner than later.
It's too bad she comes from a country and gov't that she doesn't want to return to. No doubt the gov't would not have allowed her to return to the U.S., which she and the Zapata's know. And yes, it's too bad this may put the future of the program in jeopardy. I'll bet she will become a PRODUCTIVE immigrant... Good luck to you Tanya!
How do we get the MEXICAN GOVERNMENT to do that???!!
This is cache, read story here