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Date Posted: 14:07:57 08/18/09 Tue GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: IRA militant's wife to stay in US (San Antonio Express News)


Web Posted: 08/17/2009 12:00 CDT
IRA militant's wife to stay in U.S.
By Lynn Brezosky- SAEN

Although a former IRA militant who has been detained by the Border Patrol since January 2008 is scheduled to be deported to Ireland this week, his American wife, who lives in Brownsville, will not be going with him.

Pol Brennan, 56, who has lived in the U.S. since 1983, has spent 17 months in immigration detention centers while fighting to stay in the United States. His lawyers had appealed to the Department of Homeland Security in May for a stay of removal.

Joanna Volz, Brennan's wife of more than 19 years, said she got the news Sunday that he could be flown out as early as Thursday night while she was traveling to Seattle to see her grandchildren.

“We're both pretty stunned,” she said. “We were hoping something good would come of this.”

A U.S. immigration judge ordered Brennan, who is from Northern Ireland and holds an Irish passport, deported in late November.

Beth Feinberg, one of Brennan's immigration attorneys, said she had not received the formal decision, but word had been passed to Brennan that he would be deported.

Volz said Sunday she would not be moving to Ireland, nor would she have a chance to see him in person before he goes.

During a November hearing at the Willacy Detention Center, Volz said she was the sole caregiver for an aging mother on South Padre Island.

“As I told the judge, I've got commitments in Texas, grandchildren in Seattle,” she said Sunday. “And now I've got a husband in Ireland.”

Volz said Brennan would be met by family in Shannon, Ireland, but from there all was uncertain.

While they knew he'd lost his case and subsequent appeal to stay in the U.S., they'd held onto hope until he was informed of his removal date, she said.

Brennan testified in November that he transported what he believed were explosives between drop-off points in Belfast for the IRA about six times. It was on one of those runs in 1976 that he was arrested and sentenced to 16 years in The Maze prison, from which he escaped with 37 others in 1983.

The federal government was familiar with Brennan's past but consistently renewed his work permits. It was only when he was found with an expired work permit that immigration authorities acted.

The Associated Press contributed to this report from McAllen.



Find this article at:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/53360967.html

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