Ofelia Boudaguian says she hoped for fair treatment when she and her family came to the United States in 1995

Ofelia Boudaguian says she hoped for fair treatment when she and her family came to the United States in 1995, after years of suffering discrimination and violence in Latvia. After nearly a decade in the St. Louis area, though, Boudaguian says she feels let down by the American legal system, which has denied the family political asylum and now threatens them with deportation at any moment. "We live now day by day. It's so scary," she said. A knock on the door might mean that she and her husband, Vitalik Boudaguian, and their two children must gather their belongings, submit to arrest and go to a detention facility to await deportation. Their one-year tourist visas expired May 18, 1996. The family's efforts to gain asylum have drawn support from a dedicated group of friends, who met Ofelia Boudaguian through her job as a cosmetologist at the Personalities Hair and Nails Salon in Manchester. After the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here ruled July 22 to deny the family's request for asylum, the friends launched a full-bore campaign to block their deportation. They have met with Laura Bush, peppered acquaintances of Attorney General John Ashcroft with letters and phone calls, visited the office of President George W. Bush's uncle in Clayton, corresponded with the offices of U.S. Sens. Christopher "Kit" Bond and Jim Talent, and collected 2,000 signatures on the family's behalf.