Boyfriend Gathers 2,700 Signatures to Save CA Student and Her Mother From Detention

Victory! Thanks to nearly 5,000 Change.org members -- and maybe the best boyfriend ever -- 20-year-old Regina Husman and her mother, Eveline Rahardja, have finally been freed from detention.

In less than a week, thousands of people from California and around the world have signed a Change.org petition calling on the U.S. government to release a California college student and her mother from immigration detention.

Regina Husman and Eveline Rahardja were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on October 28, 2010, two days after Regina’s 20th birthday. The immigration court rejected their application for asylum from Indonesia, where they say they would face religious persecution. The mother and daughter appealed the decision and obtained a temporary stay of deportation from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but remain detained at California’s Santa Ana City Jail.

Benjamin Young, Husman's boyfriend of six years, launched the petition to draw attention to Husman and Rahardja’s case, hoping the women can reunite with their friends and relatives — including Husman’s younger sister, a U.S. citizen — in time for Christmas. The campaign quickly drew attention though Facebook, a campaign website, and other forums, and in the past five days, more than 2,700 people have sent messages to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Assistant Secretary of ICE John Morton, and California Senator Dianne Feinstein.

Husman, who was brought to the United States when she was still a minor, is a biology major at California State University of Fullerton and vice president of the university’s Undergraduate Biology Club. Since she was detained, she has had to withdraw from classes. Rahardja is an active volunteer in the family’s church and known in her community for her generosity.

Young says that at the beginning of Husman's detention, the couple spoke twice each day. As she has adjusted to life in the jail, they have started to speak only once per day. Young says that Husman described the early days of her detention as "horrendous" because she and her mother were transferred between several facilities.

"The food was terrible, the facility officers were mean because they don't know your situation and just treat you like criminals," Young says Husman told him. "Everything is all is extremely traumatic and stressful. She's extremely homesick and sometimes she just wants to give up because being there is just too intense."

Despite these challenges, Young says, the mother and daughter are doing their best to raise the spirits of others who are detained. After their family sent them money to purchase a calling card, he says, they shared some of the money with other people who otherwise could not afford the expensive fees to make phone calls out of the facility.

"I feel that so many people have rallied in Regina and her mother's support so quickly because they understand the situation and feel the heartache that her family is going through," Young says. "Also they're genuinely good people, and they've been there for others when they needed support."

ICE spent more than $1.77 billion in fiscal year 2010 to detain nearly 400,000 people, many of whom, like Husman and Rahardja, are working hard to make positive contributions to their communities. But more than wasting taxpayer money, Husman and Rahardja’s detention is leaving a young U.S. citizen separated from her mother and sister during the holiday season, and is keeping a thriving college student from continuing her education. Their detention has clearly made an impact on hundreds of people in California and beyond, who are realizing how broken our country’s immigration system really is as they fight to free a mother and daughter.

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