ADOPTEE SEETHES ABOUT DEPORTION FOR DRUG DEALING

CAMPINAS, Brazil - The unfamiliar faces smile at him on the subway. Total
strangers flash him the thumbs-up sign and wish him good luck. People he
has never met offer him a job.

For Joao Herbert, deported from the United States to a homeland he barely
recalls, the warmth, of Brazilians is a welcome surprise - and helps to
case the anger and hurt that won't go away.

"I have been very fortunate since my arrival. People have opened their
doors and hearts to, me in a way I could never have expected," he said.

But the 22-year-old also never expected to be here, stripped of his home
and family, living on charity in a low-income district on the outskirts of
this southeastern Brazilian city, 56 miles from Sao Paulo.

Adopted from a Sao Paulo orphanage 14 years ago by Nancy Saunders and her
former husband, James Herbert, he grew up in Wadsworth, Ohio, just another
American kid. But there was a difference: His parents never asked for his
naturalization.

Herbert was applying for U.S. citizenship when he was arrested in 1997 for
selling 7.5 ounces of marijuana to an undercover police officer near Cleveland.

It was his first offense and he received probation, but he was labeled a
serious criminal under the 1996 Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act. Deportation was mandatory. He fought it for more than a
year but finally gave up.

"Although I did not have a piece of paper saying I was a U.S. citizen, I
felt like one," he said. "When I was a little boy going to school I had to
pledge allegiance to the flag. That made me an American citizen. And I
became a citizen in high school where I learned all about American history
and passed all my tests on the subject."

His voice rises at the memory of what, he feels was unfair treatment.

"I got shafted," he said angrily. "The judge never asked me about myself or
my family, or what my dreams were. She just looked at some official papers
and threw the book at me."

Herbert arrived in Sao Paulo two weeks ago. He didn't know anyone, didn't
speak the language, had no job or place to stay. He spent a week in a
homeless shelter before he was taken in by Michael Miller, an American
Baptist pastor working and living in Campinas.

Miller found a home for Herbert with Udia and Donizete Tarifa, two of his
30 congregants in the predominantly Roman Catholic district. He was given
one of the three bedrooms over the couple's grocery store, a small concrete
building with a red tile roof on a dirt road.

"He has been here only a week and all I can say is that he is like a son,"
said Mrs. Tarifa.

Portuguese is still a barrier, but the good will of Brazilians makes it easier.

"The other day I was on the subway in Sao Paulo, and I was surprised when a
lot of people started smiling and waving at me and giving me the thumbs up
sign," he said. "I really don't want to be in the spotlight, but I know
people are looking; at me and I want to make sure I take the right steps to
show everyone that I am a good person."

Several Brazilian and American firms have called to offer him a job, he
said. The most promising is a possible offer to teach English in a local
language school.

The bitterness still simmers, but Herbert won't let it hold him back.

"I know I have a promising future ahead of me," he said, sitting shirtless
on a patio behind the store.

"I made a mistake in life and I learned from that mistake, and here in
Brazil, unlike the United States, I feel I will be given a second chance in
life," he added. "They punished me by sending me back to Brazil. But they
were wrong, for coming here was blessing. I am out of jail and I am in a
country where I know I will be treated like a human being."