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AMBI car fades up under first sentence
NARR
Patty Tenesaca Delgado and her husband Jarret Kahn were driving from their home near White Plains when they told a pretty common story.
Immigrant woman meets American man ... and they fall in love across opposite sides of a Burger King counter.
ACT COUPLE
Time :09
Khan: I forgot to ask her if she had a green card. (Laugh)
Tenesaca: Stop it. Most American people when they want to marry a Spanish they're supposed to ask if they have a green card now.
NARR
AMBI car slow fade out
The problem was Tenesaca DIDN'T have a green card. She couldn't get one because when she was 18 she tried to enter the United States using someone else's papers. So authorities put her on a plane back to Ecuador.
A few years later, Tenesaca returned to the U.S. That's when she and Jarret Kahn met.
Since then, the couple has been fighting a huge immigration battle.
While it proceeded in court, authorities put Tenesaca into something called the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, or ISAP.
It's meant as an alternative to detention, even though she's never been held in detention. To keep track of her, authorities made her wear an ankle bracelet around the clock.
She pulled up her jeans to show the device.
SOUND: jeans
She kept the ankle bracelet covered so people didn't see it and think she's a criminal.
ACT Tenesaca1
Time :07
When I'm working, I cannot show this bracelet I have on my feet. Because what are they going to say, you kill somebody or what?
NARR
The ankle bracelet communicates with a black box that sits on her kitchen counter.
The box makes sure that Tenesaca stays at home for 12 hours a day.
Act Tenesaca2
Time :06
They give you a schedule. You cannot go out before the time Because the machine is going to start beeping and the police are going to come.
NARR
Tenesaca also has to check in, three times a week, with a caseworker.
At 11 am , she leaves her home near White Plains and locks the door.
SOUND
Door closing and keys locking door
Cross fade to train
NARR
She takes the train to an office in Manhattan's Chinatown to check in.
Tenesaca is one of more than 400 people in New York who are part of ISAP.
It launched in 2004 in 8 cities as a pilot program. Last fall, the federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement - or ICE - expanded it to more cities, including New York.
But the government does not run the day-to-day details of the program.
Instead, a private company does.
SOUND tape of ISAP answering machine
TIME :05
You have reached the BI Intensive Supervision Appearance Program. Para espanol, oprime numero uno.
NARR
B-I stands for Behaviorial Interventions Incorporated, which monitors 2,800 immigrants nationwide.
One of the BENEFITS of ISAP is that it costs LESS than detention - an average of $22 dollars a day, about an EIGHTH of what it costs to hold an immigrant in detention.
It's also EFFECTIVE. Reports to Congress say more than 90 percent of immigrants in ISAP show up for their court hearings for final deportation orders. That's compared to 41 percent of OTHER illegal immigrants.
Advocates for immigrants say the program can be a STEP FORWARD for people who are facing detention.
ACT Brane1
TIME :02
It's certainly preferable to being locked up.
NARR
That's Michelle Brane (BRAH-nay) who works for the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children in Washington, DC.
She says ISAP's advantages depend on the situation.
ACT Brane2
TIME :09
If you're somebody who really should be released into the community anyway, then being put on a bracelet is a step up.
NARR
... stepped up supervision, that is. Brane says for other people, who otherwise would face LONG STRETCHES in detention, ISAP is an ESPECIALLY good thing, because it allows them to avoid imprisonment.
Ravi Ragbir agrees. He is a native of Trinidad who lived in the United States legally until he was convicted of fraud. That triggered a deportation order. Ragbir has been trying to reopen the criminal case and fight deportation for almost two years.
He spent 20 months in an Alabama prison with other immigrants AND state and federal inmates. He's been on ISAP for two months now and he says it is much better than the alternative.
ACT Ragbir1
Time :09
Down in detention, your world is 8 by 6 cell. Or in my case it was a dormitory a 50 by 50 room with 60 people sleeping next to each other.
NARR
But now:
ACT RAVI
Time :09
I'm able to walk around. I'm able to go to church, I'm able to go take the bus, I'm able to actually go to the park. So for me it's a positive thing.
NARR
But immigrants' rights advocates say ISAP is not ideal for everyone. Annie Sovcik (SO-vik) is an attorney for the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service in Baltimore, one of the pilot cities for ISAP.
She says federal agents have placed immigrants in ISAP whether or not they're likely to flee.
ACT Sovcik1
Time :17
If a person is going to be complying and they're not a danger to the community and they're going to you know their regular check ins with their ICE officer and or they're going to their hearings, then why is it necessary to put them in what is essentially a home arrest type situation?
NARR
Patty Tenesaca and her husband ask the same question. She was pulled out of her old monitoring program - which wasn't as restrictive as ISAP - and fitted with an ankle bracelet..
SOUND slow fade up train ambi
On the train to Manhattan for her check in, Tenesaca says she feels worn down. She switches to Spanish because it's more comfortable for her and says that if it were up to her, she'd give up the fight.
ACT
Time :34
Si no fuera por mi espso. Ay no se yo soy, como eso me pone muy muy mal, es un lugar como a veces digo como que me riendo y ya.
Pero mi esposo dice eso es lo que quieren. Vamos a pelear hasta el final y todo va a salir bien. Mi familia tambien todo va salir. Me dan fuerza aunque me siento debil, cansada.
VOICEOVER: If it weren't for my husband. Oh I don't know, it's like this makes me feel very bad. Sometimes I tell myself enough, I'm going to give. But my husband says that's what they want. We're going to fight until the end and everything's going to be OK. My family too says everything's going to be OK. They give me strength even though I feel weak, tired.
SOUND cross fade from train to street
NARR
Tenesaca transfered from the train to the subway and then walked a few blocks to Broadway. She entered double glass doors and went into the office.
SOUND slow fade out of street ambi, to silence
It looks like any other office waiting room, [brief pause here] except for the metal detector .
After waiting a few minutes, Tenesaca met with a caseworker from the private firm that runs ISAP for the government.
A week later, the caseworkers allowed Tenesaca to move on to the next, less restrictive phase of ISAP.
She got to cut off her ankle bracelet with scissors.
Ambi church
The next Sunday, for the first time in weeks, Tenesaca got to attend Mass WITHOUT the ankle bracelet.
Inside, she prayed for strength. Her husband Jarret Kahn, who is Jewish, stood next to her in support.
Tenesaca said that she's relieved to have the bracelet off of her ankle ... but she still worries that she will be deported.
ACT Patty3
I'm still nervous because you don't know what's going to happen.
Fade out music
The couple's case is still pending. They're waiting to learn whether a court will grant them an interview for her green card.
This is Laura Isensee, Columbia Radio News.