The past caught up with Peter Briggs and in his case, it speaks German.
Now on the verge of 60, he's facing deportation to Germany, the country of his birth and a place he hasn't seen in 55 years.
"He's led a colorful life and it hasn't always been good," his brother Dieter Briggs said. "He's paid his debt to society and he's been clean and sober for 10 years. He applied for his citizenship and this is how they've responded."
Peter Briggs has been in the Sherburne County jail since February. He turned himself in after learning he could be deported, his brother said. In the past two weeks, a judge ruled that Briggs must be deported. His siblings are upset, but others say his case isn't that unusual; longtime legal U.S. residents can be deported after years in the country.
"I do not understand for the life of me what deporting him back to a country that he has not been in for over 50 years is going to do for him, or us," Cherri Briggs Chausee wrote to the judge. "So much time, energy and money have been used on this case. I need you to know it matters, to us, his family. If he deserved this, I would understand, and let whatever will be, be. But he does not, and I have done everything in my power to help."
Peter Briggs and his older brother, Dieter, were born in Hof, Germany, back when the country was divided into East and West Germany. Their mother, Helga, married Jack D. Briggs, who adopted the young boys and returned to the U.S. in 1961. Their half-sister, Briggs Chausee, was born in 1963 to Helga and Jack Briggs.
When Jack and Helga Briggs divorced in 1965, the three children stayed with Jack Briggs, who remarried and had three more children.
But Jack Briggs died in 1972 without securing citizenship for his two oldest sons. Peter was moved around to foster homes, drank alcohol and smoked marijuana, his sister said.
