Valor=Visa

By Stephen McKinley

A Belfast-born paramedic in New York whose immigration status had expired last year has been granted the right to stay in the U.S. by the Immigration and Naturalization Service as a result of his rescue work on Sept. 11.

The INS confirmed last week that Roger Smyth, who’s 36, would receive a three-year renewable O-visa, normally granted to aliens of extraordinary ability or talent, such as artists, performers or scientists.

Smyth’s case was taken up by attorney Eamonn Dornan, who thought that there might be merit in applying for a visa for Smyth based in his extraordinary bravery in the aftermath of the World Trade Center tragedy.

“It’s wonderful news,” said Dornan, a partner in the law firm Smyth, Dornan and Shea. He stressed that Smyth’s case was seen from the start as highly unlikely to succeed.

“He will be able to travel freely to home and back again. Normally this visa is reserved for people like, say, an artist such as Brian Kennedy.”

On Sept. 11, Smyth had responded to the World Trade Center, was caught in the debris cloud of the collapsing towers, and spent the next 48 hours trying to rescue the injured. He gave a vivid description of Ground Zero to the Echo after the tragedy.

“I’m not out of the woods yet,” said Smyth, who still has to clear some bureaucratic hurdles with the State Department, “but Eamonn did an excellent job. He is tenacious and very down to earth, like all us Northerners.”

Dornan added that along with letters testifying to Smyth’s work from New York Senator Charles Schumer, they were able to convince the INS that Smyth had made an extraordinary contribution, and was a person of extraordinary ability.

Smyth, who has been in the U.S. since 1997, overstayed his student visa that allowed him to study Paramedic Technology at Northeastern University in Boston, and moved to New York, where he started work as a paramedic.

When his sister became ill with cancer in 2000 back in Belfast, Smyth returned to see her and had problems reentering the U.S. in February 2001. He was aware that he was out of status but still hoped to find some way that he could visit his sister, who he said, is now in remission after cancer treatment.

After Sept. 11, amid the frenzied attempts to find survivors and then to recover bodies, one small detail stuck out in Smyth’s mind: a police officer stared at his helmet and pointed out to Smyth that the numbers on the front were, coincidently, “9-11-0.”

Traumatized like many others by what he experienced, Smyth said that he is still coming to terms with what he saw on Sept. 11, and that it had changed his life profoundly. But he is thankful for other reasons.

“My sister is doing good, she has been able to visit me here and is in remission,” he said.

Smyth continues to work as a paramedic. Most recently he was on the team that responded to an apartment building in Little Italy when Nathan Maddox, a rock musician, was tragically struck by lightning and killed while watching a storm over Manhattan.

“Roger’s case was like fitting a square peg in a round hole,” Dornan said of Smyth’s case.

Dornan also said that the case of Walsh visa couple James Murray and Ruth Gould, also from Belfast, might benefit from a new visa status, the U-visa for victims or witnesses of crimes committed in the U.S.

As reported in the Echo, Murray and Gould were allegedly ripped off by their Las Vegas employer, Steve Smith, who has an extensive criminal record and has most recently been charged with attempting to kidnap a prostitute.

“The couple are at a safe location in Long Island,” Dornan said, “and are in the process of filing for a U-visa.” The pair had been threatened with deportation after their former employer accused them of being terrorists.

“This will mean that they can stay in the U.S. at least until [their employer’s] court case can be disposed of,” Dornan said.