Steve Li, 20, City College of San Francisco student, faces deportation to a country where he has no friends or family. While experts say his situation is not unusual, his case now has the support of thousands.
Li, whose legal name is Shing Ma Li, was born in Peru but always thought he was in the United States legally because his tourist visa has a 2012 expiration date. What his mother, Li Maria Ma, 50, never told him was that the tourist visas his family was granted in 2002 didn't mean they could stay for 10 years.
Li's parents, Ma and Xin Guang Li, 55, emigrated from China to Peru in the late 1980s to escape financial hardships and the country's one-child policy. Steve Li was born in the Latin American country, but the family fled in 2002 because of political instability.
The family's tourist visas allowed them to travel to and from Peru for a decade, but they could only stay in the United States through the end of 2002. They applied for political asylum but were denied in 2003 and they lost their appeal in 2004, said Li's lawyer, Sin Yen Ling. (Source: Jessica Kwong, San Francisco Chronicle, Nov 2, 2010).