Pubdate: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 Source: New York Daily News (NY) Copyright: 2005 Daily News, L.P. Contact: http://www.nydailynews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/295 Author: Elizabeth Hays Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) A LIFE INTERRUPTED Immigrant Faces Deportation For Long-Ago Cocaine Arrest The doorbell rang before dawn at Salvatore Mattarella's Staten Island home two weeks ago and shattered his life. The 36-year-old dad opened the door to find immigration officers seeking to deport him to a country he hardly knows - over a years-old drug conviction. "I heard daddy say to mommy, 'I love you,'" said Mattarella's daughter, Katelin, 8. "Then I saw them put daddy in the car. I missed him already." Mattarella, a soft drink deliveryman, admits he made a mistake in 1996 when he helped an undercover cop buy cocaine. But he served 18 months and thought he was free to put his life back together. He got a job, bought a house and had three more kids with his wife, AnnMarie. Now, a man who thought he was an American citizen is facing deportation to Italy - which he left when he was a toddler. "I know what I did was wrong, but I did my time," Mattarella said from a Pennsylvania detention center. "I can't sleep. I keep thinking about my kids and what's going to happen to them." Mattarella is one of a growing number of immigrants caught in a widespread crackdown on convicted felons after 9/11. Like Mattarella, many have green cards, families, jobs, homes and little connection to their native countries. "Unfortunately, many of the people they're tying up loose ends on are family people who are putting their lives back together and who think they're okay because they've stayed out of trouble," said Subhash Kateel, co-founder of Families for Freedom. Deportations hit a record number last year at nearly 160,000. Deportations of people like Mattarella, who are considered fugitives, more than doubled. "We want to send a message that we intend to restore integrity to the immigration system," said Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Ernestine Fobbs. Mattarella always figured he became a citizen when his mom naturalized when he was 11. Reality hit when a judge ordered him deported in 1997 while he was still in jail upstate. Upon his release in 1998, he was immediately picked up by immigration officers and detained for two more weeks. His family posted a $15,000 bond for his release, but Mattarella insists that was the last time they heard from ICE until the morning of July 15. "When they picked me up, they said I was a fugitive for eight years. How could I be a fugitive if I was filing taxes?" said Mattarella. "If I was a fugitive would I buy a house?" - --- MAP posted-by: Beth