Navigation Error sours marriage dreams of Bikini Dancer

Menendez, 26, a young woman from Argentina, working as Bikini Dancer at a club in Pasadena and planning to get married in October had to pay a heavy price for poor sense of direction.

Menendez entered US in 2002 on a valid visa for six months but continued to stay here for the past seven years. All these years, to avoid her identification, she worked on cash jobs, latest one being as bikini dancer.

She even was filing her tax returns with Internal Revenue Service. She had a failed marriage in these seven years and was presently going steady with a young boy and planning to get married to get US immigration status.

On August 12, driving from California to Montana, inadvertently she had taken a wrong turn and entered Canada. After realizing her mistake, she asked for directions from Canadian Border Agent, who asked her to take a turn from flag pole and drive into US.

As she re-entered United States, she was stopped by US agent who insisted her for any identification as a passport, birth certificate or any identification other than her international driver's license or her visa.

The U.S. agent told her he wasn't going to let her enter the States because, not only did she not have the proper paperwork, she had lived here illegally for so long that she wouldn't be allowed to return for 10 years.

She was given the option of returning to Canada, or being deported by the U.S. As she was reluctant to return to US to abusive father, so she decided to try to stay in the United States. In light of that decision, the federal government commenced an expedited deportation effort.

Her attorney, Shahid Haque-Hausrath, argued that simply driving around a flagpole in Canada to return to the U.S. doesn't legally mean that she left the U.S. He pointed to a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case in which a man whose visa automatically renewed whenever he left the States tried a similar tactic.

Judge wasn’t pleased with Attorney's arguments and admonished Haque-Hausrath to stay focused on what the court could and could not rule upon.

In the meanwhile, Menendez has been put in custody at the Cascade County detention center since her arrest last month.