Ghanaian in Utah fighting deportation

Edmund Ntiri has lived the American immigrant's dream. Arriving on a permanent legal visa after a four year wait, the native of Ghana in West Africa moved to Utah twelve years ago, following the footsteps of his father, who immigrated earlier and earned his American citizenship.

Ntiri lives in a nice suburban home in Kearns with his American wife Elaine. He says he's never broken the law, never been on welfare, and has worked the same job the past ten years. But he says, the U.S. government wants to send him back to Ghana in two more weeks.

Edmund says it all stems from a mistake he made on his visa paperwork a dozen years ago. He married a woman in Ghana, where the marriage process is long, involved, and expensive. In the space where the government asked the date of his marriage, he mistakenly wrote in the date of his engagement. Since he previously has filed an application saying he was single, Ntiri says the government is accusing him of committing immigration fraud.

"I've never been in trouble with the law," he told ABC 4 News. "I filled out the paperwork wrong, I made a mistake."

Ten years of trying to fix the error are apparently coming to end. Ntiri has received notice that he must leave the country in two weeks. In 1999, he married his Utah wife Elaine.

As the two held hands in their Kearns home, Elaine said of Edmund, "This is my support system right here. I married him for richer or poorer, sickness or health, and not until the U.S. government says we can't be married anymore."

The Ntiri's are making a last ditch appeal to Utah's two U.S. senators. They're hoping they can win another stay from the State Department.

If Ntiri is forced back to Ghana, his wife tearfully says, "I don't know what I'll do--I don't know what I'll do."