Immigration officials may deport Mormon branch president and family

DRAPER — A local leader of an LDS Church Spanish-speaking congregation who faces deportation unwittingly finds himself in the sights of Latino activists looking to further their position in the ongoing illegal immigration debate.

Immigrations agents arrested Felix Joaquin Callejas-Hernandez, his wife and two teenage children April 19 and they all now face deportation to their native El Salvador. Callejas served as president of the Eastridge 9th Branch in Draper until his release last week.

Callejas-Hernandez, 53, remains incarcerated in the Utah County Jail. His wife Luca Margarita Castillo de Callejas, 52; son Jose Moroni Callejas-Castillo, 19; and daughter Margarita Concepcion Callejas-Castillo, 18, were allowed to go home April 22, according to jail records.

"My understanding is they didn't commit any crimes," said Latino community activist Tony Yapias.

How the family came to be in arrested was not released, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement routinely jails people with deportation orders who haven't left the country.

An immigration judge ordered Luca Callejas to leave the country in 2008 and the others in 2009, ICE said in a statement. It did not explain the circumstances leading to those orders or how the family initially entered the United States.

A subsequent appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals was dismissed, according to ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley. ICE, she said, is making arrangements for their return to El Salvador.

Yapias, director of Projecto de Latino Utah, alerted the media to the family's situation via email Friday. Cases such as this, he said, are pitting LDS Church members against each other in the illegal immigration debate.

"We have to do something about this issue," he said.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reiterated its support last week for the Utah Compact and a package of illegal immigration bills, including controversial HB116 that the Utah Legislature approved this year. That position raised the hackles of some LDS members.

"Still," said Yapias, "there is much division among right-wing conservative LDS members and many who favored a more compassionate approach to solving our country's immigration problems."

On Friday, LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter issued a brief statement regarding the situation the Callejas-Hernandez family finds itself in.