Actor Randy Quaid, wife released from custody

VANCOUVER — Both Randy and Evi Quaid have been released from custody following a Immigration and Refugee Board hearing this afternoon.

The hearing was told by a representative for the B.C. Minister of Public Safety that Evi Quaid may be eligible for Canadian citizenship because her father was born in Canada. Board adjudicator Fred Ringham ordered her released without conditions.

"I am so proud," said Evi Quaid as she walked out of the hearing room at 3 p.m.

Her husband, actor Randy Quaid, was also released today after being declared eligible to proceed with his refugee claim, said his lawyer Catherine Sas.

He has posted a $10,000 bond, after he and his wife were held for six days at the airport’s immigration holding facility.

Sas said that while processing Evi Quaid’s claim, it was determined that Evi Quaid’s father was born in Canada, which because of changes to the Canadian Immigration Citizenship laws, means she could gain Canadian citizenship.

"I’m so happy, yes, and Randy is so happy," said Evi as she and her husband emerged from the immigration and refugee board office in downtown Vancouver.

Randy Quaid, who has a refugee claim eligibility hearing Thursday, said he would be happy to stay in Canada.

"I’ve got nothing against my beloved America. I love my country and have been very happy there. I come to Canada and people have always embraced me here…so it’s not a question of either/or.

"I just want a place where I can work and enjoy my life and not feel someone is always following me around and trying to steal from me."

Evi Quaid said she was delighted to learn that she may qualify for Canadian citizenship due to her father’s birth in Canada.

"I’m just so proud because I love Canada, I truly do."

"Everybody has the same sense of humour as me. It’s big, it’s beautiful — like my husband."

The couple was arrested in Vancouver last week, due to outstanding warrants in Santa Barbara, Calif. The warrants are for charges related to a squatting case in which they are accused of breaking into the guest house of a property they once owned, living in it and vandalizing it.

The Quaids claim they are being persecuted and fear murder at the hands of what they call "star whackers."

Quaid has more than 100 film credits listed on the Internet Movie Data Base. Quaid has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, won a Golden Globe Award in 1998 and has been nominated for numerous other awards including a Best Actor in a Supporting Role Academy Award nomination in 1973 for The Last Detail. Quaid’s brother is Hollywood actor Dennis Quaid.

Randy Quaid has worked in Vancouver at least twice in the past, according to the Internet Movie Database. In 2006, he made a TV series pilot, Blade: The Series, in which he played a character called Melvin Caylo, and in 2005 he played Irwin Sikorski in a movie 5ive Days to Midnight.