Guatemalan Massacre Survivor Wins Political Asylum in U.S.

“He was really, really happy,” Greathead said. “I think this is recognition by the U.S. government that they can’t deny political asylum to a victim of a massacre whose perpetrators we are prosecuting.”

Ramírez Castañeda filed the request late last year after a Guatemalan investigation proved that he had been abducted as a 3-year-old by an officer in a commando squad that wiped out the village of Dos Erres, one of the worst massacres in Guatemala’s 30-year civil war.

Ramírez Castañeda’s mother and eight brothers and sisters were killed, but the soldier’s family raised him as one of their own. Last year, Guatemalan human rights activists traveled to the United States to reunite Ramírez Castañeda with his real father, a 70-year-old farmer who had survived the massacre because he was in another town.

Recounted in “Finding Oscar: Massacre, Memory and Justice in Guatemala,” the story has become a high-profile case in both the United States and Guatemala. After almost three decades of impunity, authorities in both nations have pursued the killers of Dos Erres, bolstered by DNA evidence proving that soldiers abducted and raised Ramírez Castañeda and another boy from the hamlet in northern Guatemala.

Guatemalan courts have convicted five soldiers, the first guilty verdicts for a massacre in the conflict that ended in 1996, and are prosecuting former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt as the mastermind. U.S. federal agents have caught four fugitive commandos who migrated to the United States, including Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes, a former Army lieutenant who was extradited Friday from Canada to stand trial in Southern California on immigration charges related to the case.

The U.S. government’s decision to grant asylum status to Ramírez Castañeda ratifies his claim that he could be in danger of persecution in Guatemala. He is living proof of a crime carried out by a military that retains great power in a nation racked by lawlessness and corruption.

Ramírez Castañeda’s wife, Nidia, also received asylum status as his dependent, according to a Sept. 19 letter from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The couple will be eligible to apply for permanent residency in a year as well as obtaining work authorization, Social Security cards and other benefits.

“This makes them as normal and regular as they can be without being documented in this country,” Greathead said. He said he believed the news coverage of Ramírez Castañeda’s case had played an important role in the approval of the asylum request.

The development opens a panorama of opportunities to Ramírez Castañeda after 14 years of living in the shadows in the United States. Despite his illegal status, he has managed to provide for his family by working two full-time jobs, most recently as a supervisor at a fast food restaurant and a cleaning company. He studied accounting in Guatemala and has training in asbestos removal in the United States.

His real father, Tranquilino Castañeda, spent the summer living with the family at their two-bedroom duplex in Framingham, Mass. It was an enjoyable and emotionally powerful visit for all involved, Greathead said. Castañeda’s visa allowed him to stay for a limited period of time, and he is complying with the terms, Greathead said. He declined to provide further details about Castañeda’s whereabouts because of security concerns.

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