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Immigrant Nelson County Farmer Faces Residency Battle

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  • Immigrant Nelson County Farmer Faces Residency Battle

    IMMIGRANT NELSON COUNTY FARMER FACES RESIDENCY BATTLE
    By Erin McGrath

    Lynchburg News and Advance
    http://www2.newsadvance.com/business/2011/jun/01/immigrant-nelson-county-farmer-faces-residency-bat-ar-1078063/
    June 1 2011
    Virginia

    With the hot spring sun blazing down through his wide-brimmed straw
    hat, Ara Avagyan rode a bright orange tractor through the fields of
    vegetables on Double H Farm in Shipman last week.

    Avagyan, 41, is the farm manager at Double H and holds an agriculture
    management degree.

    He was tending to cabbage, kale, carrots and other produce he may
    not get to harvest.

    "Look at my hands," he said, holding out his red-dirt stained fingers.

    "It is not easy to play with soil."

    For more than six years, Avagyan, his wife Gayane and their two
    children, Samson and Lyudmila, have called Nelson County home. The
    family emigrated from Armenia on Ara's work visa in 2003, but their
    status in the U.S. is now in jeopardy.

    Earlier this year, Ara Avagyan received a letter from the U.S.

    Citizenship and Immigration Services that his application for permanent
    residency status was "insufficient" and was being denied.

    Since then, Avagyan and his employer, Richard Bean, the co-owner of
    Double H farm, have been working to appeal the decision.

    "We're in hell," Bean said about the process. "We're surrounded by
    red tape."

    Now, more than 400 of their neighbors have picked up the Avagyans'
    cause, appealing to federal officials to approve the family's
    application for permanent residency status.

    "This is not your standard case where you have an illegal immigrant
    who is perhaps taking away a job that could go to someone else,"
    Axel Goetz, of Shipman, said. "Ara is someone who has built up a
    farm. He has hired already. He will be a further producer and not
    consumer of jobs."

    Axel and his wife, Anke Goetz, met the Avagyans while browsing
    through the Double H Farm stand at the Nellysford Farmers Market a
    few years ago.

    "They looked interesting to me," Anke Goetz said. "I talked to them
    a little bit and took their card and found out by their name that
    they were Armenian and I was planning a trip to Armenia. I started
    to talk to them the next farmers market. That's how we started to
    get friendly."

    Through conversations, the Goetzes learned about the Avagyans'
    struggles to become permanent residents of the U.S., something they
    knew about, having emigrated from Germany themselves more than 30
    years ago.

    "I think another thing that was interesting to them and to us was, we
    came to this country also," Anke Goetz said. "When you are somebody
    who comes new and you meet somebody who had the same experience 30
    years ago, that is kind of an interesting thing."

    Concern for their neighbors, who had now become friends, motivated
    the Goetzes into action.

    With others in the community, the Goetzes assembled a packet of
    information that was passed on to Virginia Sens. Jim Webb and Mark
    Warner and Rep. Robert Hurt in hopes of getting some help with the
    Avagyans' residency status. Supporters are seeking to get a private
    bill passed that would help the family, but so far have gotten no
    response.

    The packet contained pages of information, copies of immigration forms
    and a petition of more than 400 signatures from Nelson residents in
    support of the Avagyans.

    "They are simply people you want to have as friends and they've become
    good friends over the years," Axel Goetz said. "Another reason (to
    help) is from what is a feeling of what is right and what is wrong.

    Now it is an issue of justice. These guys did everything right. Ara
    was here before, legally. He got the right kind of visa. They did
    everything right."

    U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services gave several reasons for
    its denial of the family's application. The agency said, among other
    reasons, that the newspaper job advertisement Ara Avagyan replied
    to did not contain information about wages and job location that the
    federal office requires. It also said that Ara's income in 2009 was
    $2,433 short of the minimum income required to stay in the country
    on his work visa.

    But the family's supporters say that the federal government changed
    those wage regulations after the Avagyans submitted their application
    for permanent residency.

    The packet also contained letters of support from local residents,
    like Gary and Jeanne Scott, who own Twin Springs Farm in Shipman,
    a direct competitor of Double H Farm.

    The Scotts are also the Avagyans' neighbors and Jeanne drives the
    school bus the children ride every day to school. Samson attends
    Nelson County High School and Lyudmila attends Nelson County Middle
    School. Both are honors students.

    "Ara is a very kind and personable person who has a great wealth of
    farming knowledge," Gary Scott wrote. "He and I often collaborate
    on growing."

    Jeanne Scott said small farmers are facing a difficult time in the
    U.S. already, without the added burden of bureaucracy the Avagyans
    are experiencing.

    "When you've got somebody with the growing skills and willingness that
    he has, it's crazy they don't want to keep him here," she said. "The
    process is so protracted. It's such a shame because they're great
    people."

    Bean said he and the Avagyans will continue to fight the decision.

    "We are continuing to operate like we're going to win," he said.

    Meanwhile Ara will continue to harvest the plants he grows on Double
    H Farm.

    "I just want to grow things like lettuce and make people happy,"
    he said. "When I plant a tree, it's not one day of work. You have to
    see what is going on with what you plant. I want to see what is next."

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