The South African couple were denied asylum by federal immigration officials.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has spoken. Mike and Carol Gormley must be escorted back to South Africa by June 18.

All the medical documentation, political pressure, candlelight vigils, prayers and community fund-raisers weren’t enough to turn the immigration tide in the island couple’s favor.

“We’re making arrangements to leave the country,” Mike Gormley said, adding that Homeland Security must review their tentative itinerary and decide where the couple will land.

“They’ll probably put us back in our hometown of Durban. At least we hope so,” said Gormley, who has acute congestive heart failure. “They are sending a medical person with me.

“They just want to ensure that if something happens to me during the flight, they can attend to me. Once we reach our destination in South Africa, we’re no longer their responsibility.”

The Gormleys have spent six years fighting for asylum in the U.S., citing Mike’s health problems and employment discrimination they face in their native land after decades of apartheid.

Their efforts wound through the initial immigration application and appeals process, and eventually the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals process.

Their final hope – a deportation deferment based on Mike’s health – recently was denied. They are out of options, apparently even for moving to a country other than South Africa.

“Time is against us” to take the necessary steps to go elsewhere, Mike said. “I kind of find it very hard to talk about right now.”

Once they leave, the Gormleys will be banned from re-entering the United States for years.

As their daughter, islander Maureen Kruse, recently wrote on her blog:

“Going back to South Africa will be detrimental for him. He will not have access to private medical insurance and, therefore, he will not get the care he needs. Certainly there will not be replacement surgery for a new defibrillator when the time comes.”

Mike underwent two bypass surgeries for his failing heart in his native country. The care he has received in Seattle and a daily rainbow of medications have kept him alive far longer than his South African surgeon predicted.

After the Gormleys return to South Africa, they will have no jobs, no funds and no insurance, said friend and Safeway co-worker Sue Wilmot, who has been the couple’s spokesperson.

Rummage sales held on the couple’s behalf last weekend netted more than $1,500, money they will take back with them, Wilmot said.

Good-byes

In addition to leaving their Bainbridge friends, the Gormleys once again will have to say good-bye to Kruse and her family, husband Eric and their four children, ages 6 to 17.

“This is harder on our family leaving here than it was leaving South Africa when my husband and I left with our three older children seven years ago,” Kruse said. “We were relieved to leave the circumstances we were living under. It was a little bit of excitement, but more relief.

“When my parents joined us a year later, it was a lot of relief for them and also great excitement. It was a very happy reunion. This time, they’re not leaving voluntarily.”

The Kruses’ own dealings with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service – formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service and now a bureau of Homeland Security – have compounded the family’s ordeal.

The family has made its own application to stay in the United States and has a hearing in September. They are very apprehensive about the outcome.

“Like my parents, we have work authorization permits,” Kruse said. “We are about where my parents were six years ago. Our youngest child is a U.S. citizen, but we don’t know if that will help.”

Although well-meaning community members offered to help the Gormleys and the Kruses stay in the United States through less-than-scrupulous means, they declined to follow that route.

“We feel like we left (South Africa) for a valid reason and we want people to take notice of that,” Kruse said.

How will the Kruses and Gormleys say goodbye to one another?

“Not easily,” Kruse said. “What provides a little bit of a relief is that both my younger brothers are there (in Durban).”

The Kruse family found their way to Bainbridge Island through close family friends who left South Africa a few months before they did.

“The year that we were here before my parents came over, everything was a surprise,” Kruse said. “So by the time they arrived, we had already become aware of what a caring community it was and just how pleasant people were in general, how accommodating.

“The impact of love and the care and support they received is going to make it harder for them to leave here than it was for them to leave their own family in South Africa.”

She continued: “If suddenly South Africa would change and became safe, this is where they would choose to be because of the people. I’ve just had to kind of be accepting of the fact they don’t just consider us their family here any more.”