A FATHER DEPORTED, A SON DEAD

Youth's suicide follows immigrant dad's return to Colombia

Los Angeles - (AP) Relatives think they know what killed Gerardo Anthony
Mosquera Jr., and it wasn't drugs, gangs or any of the other dangers that
can confront a 17-year-old.

It was, they contend, a government crackdown that deported his father to
Colombia - after 29 years of U.S. residency for selling a police informant
a $10 bag of marijuana in 1989.

Relatives said the younger Gerardo had been despondent since his father was
deported before Christmas. One evening about two weeks ago, Gerardo joined
a group of friends outside his Bell Gardens home, pulled out a gun and
announced, "I'm going to kill myself."

Then he pulled the trigger. He died two days later, on March 2, at a hospital.

"That damn little bag of marijuana," said the boy's mother, Maria Sanchez
Mosquera, a school bus driver. It turned everything around. It cost my
husband his papers. It cost my son his life."

His father, Gerardo Sr., was refused permission by U.S. embassy officials
in Bogota to temporarily re-enter the United States to attend Saturday's
funeral.

"I cannot accept my son's death right now," Mosquera told the Los Angeles
Times in a recent telephone interview "I'm 4,000 miles away. How am I
supposed to act and think? ... I cannot sleep. I've lost 45 pounds. My life
is ruined."

The Mosquera family's saga highlights the darker side of the immigration
reforms passed by Congress in 1996.

Community workers contend that a crackdown on so-called criminal aliens has
torn apart some families and forced them onto welfare.

Acquaintances say it changed Gerardo Jr.

The father of an infant son, he was recalled as a diligent Bell Gardens
High School student who enjoyed sports, stayed drug-free and worked after
school to try to fatten the household's pocketbook.

But after his father's deportation, Gerardo began missing school, said
Joseph Petruzzi, a counselor at his high school.

"He became a different person," his mother said. I think he believed my
husband walked out on us!'

The deportation coincided with a breakup with Gerardo's girl friend, who
was the mother of his son, the family said.

I don't know what could be worse than this," his mother said. "To lose him
like this ... I just can't bear it."

The elder Gerardo, 38, has returned to his mother's home in Cali, Colombia.
He said he has had a difficult time adjusting; his Spanish is rusty,
infused with Mexican border slang.

I was raised in the U.S.," Mosquera said. "I'm a stranger here. I can't get
a job. I don't even know how to look for a job. How the hell am I supposed
to survive?"

In 1989, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail after pleading guilty to the
sale and transportation of 0.6 grams of marijuana. He later was imprisoned
for failing to report to his probation officer. Upon his release, he was
turned over to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which led
to his de. portation.

Under the new immigration laws, selling illegal drugs is an "aggravated
felony" that can result in a legal resident being deported and barred from
the United States for life.

Mosquera's deportation deprived the family of his $300 weekly pay as a
forklift operator.

The family

Mosquera's wife, three children and Gerardo Jr.'s son is struggling. Money
for funeral expenses came from car washes and donations.

Mosquera said he regrets falling to apply for U.S. citizenship in his many
years here, although he could have naturalized easily and averted the
danger of deportation.