A LIFE INTERRUPTED

Immigrant Faces Deportation For Long-Ago Cocaine Arrest

The doorbell rang before dawn at Salvatore Mattarella's Staten Island home
two weeks ago and shattered his life.

The 36-year-old dad opened the door to find immigration officers seeking to
deport him to a country he hardly knows - over a years-old drug conviction.

"I heard daddy say to mommy, 'I love you,'" said Mattarella's daughter,
Katelin, 8. "Then I saw them put daddy in the car. I missed him already."

Mattarella, a soft drink deliveryman, admits he made a mistake in 1996 when
he helped an undercover cop buy cocaine.

But he served 18 months and thought he was free to put his life back
together. He got a job, bought a house and had three more kids with his
wife, AnnMarie.

Now, a man who thought he was an American citizen is facing deportation to
Italy - which he left when he was a toddler.

"I know what I did was wrong, but I did my time," Mattarella said from a
Pennsylvania detention center. "I can't sleep. I keep thinking about my
kids and what's going to happen to them."

Mattarella is one of a growing number of immigrants caught in a widespread
crackdown on convicted felons after 9/11.

Like Mattarella, many have green cards, families, jobs, homes and little
connection to their native countries.

"Unfortunately, many of the people they're tying up loose ends on are
family people who are putting their lives back together and who think
they're okay because they've stayed out of trouble," said Subhash Kateel,
co-founder of Families for Freedom.

Deportations hit a record number last year at nearly 160,000. Deportations
of people like Mattarella, who are considered fugitives, more than doubled.

"We want to send a message that we intend to restore integrity to the
immigration system," said Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman
Ernestine Fobbs.

Mattarella always figured he became a citizen when his mom naturalized when
he was 11. Reality hit when a judge ordered him deported in 1997 while he
was still in jail upstate.

Upon his release in 1998, he was immediately picked up by immigration
officers and detained for two more weeks. His family posted a $15,000 bond
for his release, but Mattarella insists that was the last time they heard
from ICE until the morning of July 15.

"When they picked me up, they said I was a fugitive for eight years. How
could I be a fugitive if I was filing taxes?" said Mattarella. "If I was a
fugitive would I buy a house?"