Victor Toro, Tortured in Chile, Fights Deportation

[Judi Lynn]

Source: New York Times

Victor Toro, Tortured in Chile, Fights Deportation
By DAVID GONZALEZ
Published: April 17, 2011

Whether fighting a military dictator in Chile, speaking up for the impoverished in the South Bronx or denouncing United States intervention overseas, Victor Toro has never been shy about his left-of-center politics. So why should he start now?

Perhaps because he faces imminent deportation to his native Chile, after the authorities discovered that he had been living illegally in the United States since 1984.

A well-known advocate for immigrants and the needy in New York, Mr. Toro has been in and out of immigration court for nearly four years, unsuccessfully battling a deportation order and trying to win asylum. But unlike most supplicants there, he has remained stubbornly outspoken outside the courtroom — corralling colleagues for May Day rallies, demanding changes in immigration laws and criticizing the United States government, which has accused him of having belonged to a Chilean terrorist group in the 1970s.

Even as he announced a last-ditch legal appeal last month, he went out of his way to fault President Obama for not apologizing for the role of the United States in the 1973 coup that ousted a Chilean president, Salvador Allende, and installed Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/nyregion/victor-toro-tortured-in-chile-fights-deportation.html?_r=1&src=twrhp