New York – The 67-year-old co-founder of La Peña del Bronx, who was arrested in July in a raid by the Border Patrol when he was returning from California by train, faces a big moment on January 11 in Federal Immigration Court at Federal Plaza in Manhattan. On that day, a judge will decide if he is to be arrested and deported to Chile, his native country.

Toro said that since 2007, he has appeared in court on six occasions, and that he is confident that on January 11 the authorities will grant him some sort of legal residency so that he can remain in the country with his daughter Rosa Toro, 30, who is a legal resident, and his wife, the community activist Nieves Ayress, who is a United States citizen.

"We have filed three kinds of petitions for legal residency, and among them is one for political asylum," said Toro, who entered the United States illegally in 1984 through the border with Mexico, the country where he had taken refuge after suffering torture and persecution during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile.

"I was tortured by the dictatorship, and I can also cite a law which protects the victims of torture, and thus gain a legal benefit in order to become a resident," said Toro.

In case the asylum petition is rejected, Toro's defense team will call upon another resource, called "Cancellation of Deportation," which basically makes a connection between Toro and his family since 1984, and how separation would affect him.

Toro said that [denial of his claims] would be not only a judgment of his "illegality," but also because of his social and political past, as a member of the Movimiento Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR, Revolutionary Left Movement).

"This organization is listed as terrorist and that aggravates my situation," said Toro. "When I was a member of the MIR, the organization sought a political revolution in favor of the dispossessed and was not terrorist," he declared.

Peter Winn, a Professor of History at Tufts University specializing in Latin American affairs, and Chilean history in particular, and the author of several books on Chile, will testify on behalf of Victor Toro to clarify the role played by MIR during the Pinochet dictatorship, which will be of fundamental importance to Toro's asylum petition.

Toro's defenders will hold a demonstration at Federal Plaza on January 11, to demand legal residency for the co-founder of La Peña del Bronx, an organization which has worked since 1987 with programs to prevent HIV/AIDS and domestic violence, for women's equality, and with sports and cultural groups.