Parents of a recent Novato High School graduate facing deportation recounted a litany of violent acts against relatives in their native Guatemala and told an immigration judge in San Francisco on Thursday they fear a gang will kill their son if he returns to the country he left when he was 1 year old.

Immigration officials have ordered Elida Perez, 40, and Salvador "Sam" Mejia, 38, to leave the U.S. by Nov. 2. Their 18-year-old son, Gilbert Mejia, who came to Marin County with them illegally 17 years ago, faces separate immigration proceedings. On Thursday, after hearing from his parents, Judge Miriam Hayward continued Gilbert's deportation hearing until July 28. At that time, the first free day in the judge's court calendar, Gilbert is expected to testify in support of his application for asylum.

Mayans who fled their country during a civil war, Gilbert's parents described how both their fathers were brutally beaten, their cousin was murdered, and a car intentionally hit Perez's brother while he was riding a motorcycle. The violence--some inexplicable, some they believe political--spans their adult lives.

Sitting next to an American flag, they testified in Spanish, which an interpreter translated into English. "The police down there don't carry out justice," Sam Mejia said. "The police are bought and sold for money. And the gangs down there have a great deal of power."

Mejia and Perez said they feared that if Gilbert-- a Santa Rosa Junior College student and an aspiring architect--returned to Guatemala, gangs would recruit him, and he would be forced to join or be subject to violence.

"If he doesn't join the gang down there, he'd be viewed as an enemy," Perez said. "They'll kill him. Down there, the police don't even investigate things that are clear as day. So many people are killed down there they don't even take the bodies away."

Her voice cracking, her eyes filling with tears, she added: "Unfortunately, my country is a place that's not safe, especially for people his age, and that's why I'm very afraid for him to go back. It would break my heart for him to go down there because that's why I brought him here."

In 1995, at the end of the civil war, which started in 1954 with a CIA-led coup, Perez said the government gave her father and other indigenous farmers land to harvest crops. About three years ago, in what her family believes was an effort to force her 68-year-old father off his land, he was beaten so badly that he now walks with a cane. At about the same time, Perez believes a driver purposely rode his car into her brother's motorcycle, breaking his leg.

The intimidation worked. The family abandoned its plot of land. But Perez, who described herself as submissive, told the immigration judge that the son she raised in America would not sit idly by but would try to right wrongs.

"He's one of those types of people who want to help other people, and he doesn't like injustices," Perez said. "Down in my country, that's dangerous. If he starts to help out, for example, in the case of my parents, or tries to find out who hurt my brother, he's going to get himself in trouble."

"I have no doubt that when he shows up down there," Mejia said of his son, "that some gang is going to call him over, and if he refuses to join, he'll be killed."

Last year, Mejia said his cousin was found shot to death in the taxicab he drove. "They didn't steal anything from him," he said. "They just killed him."

Mejia said his relatives have no idea and no way to find out why his cousin was killed. "My aunt doesn't have money to pay for an investigator," he said. "Down there, people who have money can pay to have people follow up on the case. The people who have money there pay the police so they can have justice."

When Mejia was 15 years old, he said about 20 military men came to his parent's restaurant seeking revenge against his father because he had removed a drunken and belligerent relative of a military commissioner. While Mejia, his mother and his sister watched, the military men tried to take his father out of the restaurant. Mejia attempted to block the door, but they pushed and kicked him out of the way.

Later, Mejia said his father described the beating he took. "My father told me he had to kneel before the military person, and they kicked him." Dressed in a blue striped shirt and blue paisley tie, Gilbert propped his clenched fist under his chin while his father testified.

Judge Hayward had to continue the hearing when she ran out of time before Gilbert could testify. While Gilbert remains in the U.S. illegally but without a deportation date, his parents are packing up the Novato home they own and preparing to leave the country with his American-born 4-year-old and 13-year-old sisters.

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