Maria Stepanyan and her brother were doing everything by the book.

Stepanyan, a U.S. citizen who immigrated from Armenia after enduring war in her childhood, applied 13 years ago to have her brother join her in the U.S. and escape the continuing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“I’ve been trying to live my life here, go to my job, take my kid to school, cook a dinner, while following the news in Armenia to see what’s happening,” Stepanyan said. “Whose name is on the screen as a dead person? Who else is drafted? Do I have touch with my brother? Is he still there?”

She, their mother, and Stepanyan’s husband, Charlie Hickman, have lived in Longmont for years, and Stepanyan’s brother, whom she wished not to name for his safety in Armenia, has been visiting them on and off for the past 10 years on travel visas while they wait for the application to process.

However, an apparent mix-up and possible deportation in Germany on her brother’s flight back to Armenia after his most recent visit could cause major setbacks to his future travels to see his family or even jeopardize his chances of gaining permanent U.S. citizenship.

The ordeal also reinforced to the family the struggles they’ve faced trying to follow complex immigration laws for so long and the stress of having a family member so close to an active conflict in Armenia.

“We now are in this situation of figuring out what happened and the severity of it,” Stepanyan said. “Suddenly this trip has turned our life direction into dealing with this complex international matter. This has collapsed on our family when we are already stressed by being separated from each other.”

Stepanyan’s brother was due to fly back to Armenia on April 1 after a short visit as a tourist.

He was set to fly from Denver International Airport to Frankfurt, Germany to Yerevan, Armenia with Lufthansa, but a cancellation of the second leg of his flight caused Lufthansa to give him a new flight to Vienna, Austria, from Frankfurt, then from there on to Yerevan.

Once he got to Frankfurt, he had to go through border patrol to get into Vienna, and he was stopped and questioned for not having a visa.

He was questioned in English translated from German, but since he is not fluent in English, he couldn’t understand what was happening.

An Armenian translator eventually showed up, but when Stepanyan’s brother asked if he was being deported, he was simply told he should get a lawyer when he got to Armenia.

He was made to sign a lot of papers, copies of which he wasn’t given, and ended up being escorted by German officials to a flight to Yerevan, and once he got to Armenia, he was met by Armenian officials at the gate and escorted out of the airport.

“That whole experience of traveling home after being a tourist in the U.S., but somehow midway you are treated like a criminal,” Stepanyan said. “He was no longer treated like a free person.”

Lufthansa representatives did not respond to a request for comment, and Stepanyan said on April 17 she has not heard from the airline since she went to Denver International Airport herself a few days after the incident.

Now, aside from the existing hardship of being separated from her brother due to immigration policy, Stepanyan must try and figure out what exactly happened in Germany and what happens now.

If he was deported and it goes on his record, he could have issues traveling again since Frankfurt is such a large airport in Europe; a deportation mark on his record could also look bad for his application to become a permanent U.S. resident.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State, which oversees green card processing for people living outside of the U.S., wrote in an email that deportation itself that does not involve the U.S. would not affect a person’s eligibility, however, the reason for the deportation could affect eligibility.

For example, deportation from a country other than the U.S. for something like trafficking drugs could make a person ineligible for a U.S. visa, the spokesperson said.

For Hickman, seeing this kind of mistake happen after 13 years of waiting just shows the increasing hopelessness and frustration of the immigration system.

“He chose to follow U.S. immigration laws and leave this country (before his visa expired) and go back to a warzone,” Hickman said. “He could just stay here and be an unlawful immigrant, and that’s what people were telling him. But we were trying to do things by the book this whole time, and the books don’t even work for us.”

After that many years of doing everything right, a mix-up like this happened in part because it is taking so long for Stepanyan’s application to process, Hickman said.

Stepanyan applied for her brother to become a permanent U.S. resident in 2010, but because sibling relationships are the lowest preference tier for the family of U.S. citizens’ petitions, the government is only processing applications up to 2007, according to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs.

They’ve done everything right, Stepanyan said, and her brother wants to become part of American society the right way, even though it means going back to a country on the verge of an active conflict.

“He has been trying to do what is expected of him with the highest responsibility instead of fooling the country he wants to be part of,” Stepanyan said. “We were doing everything the right way because we believe this path is true, but we are coming to realize this is deceiving. He was honoring the systems, but it was foolish, I suppose.”

U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services officials declined an interview with The Denver Post to discuss the long wait times for petitions since they can’t discuss specific cases and their individual wait times.

Stepanyan herself lived near the war with Azerbaijan when she was a teenager living in a border town in Armenia, and she said not a day goes by that she’s not worried about her brother, who is alone in their hometown as the conflict with Azerbaijan grows more and more dangerous.

“It’s really difficult living here as an immigrant with a broken family,” she said. “I have a job; I have a family, but part of me isn’t here. Every moment, there is not a second where it is not on my mind, that I’m not whole.”

Their mother was diagnosed with leukemia recently, making the desire for her brother to live with them in Longmont all the more emotional.

And for Stepanyan, this just shows her how “broken” immigrant families become by some immigration policies.

“It impacts all citizens here because if I’m losing my mental and physical health, then I’m not able to contribute as much as I would be in complete health.”

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.