Recently in Deportation Category
The four students currently walking the 1500-mile Trail of Dreams from Florida to D.C. are in Atlanta this week. The students and their supporters made a stop in Gwinnett County, a suburb of Atlanta and location of a 287(g) program run by Sheriff Butch Conway whereby local police enforce federal immigration laws under ICE oversight. These 287(g) programs are typically enacted by grandstanding sheriffs who want an excuse to terrorize the local Latin@ community to win votes among local nativist whites. Once 287(g) is in place in a given jurisdiction, local law enforcement has carte blanche to engage in racial profiling, knowing that any arrest for any reason, whether or not criminal charges are made or are later thrown out, will likely lead to deportation. It's simple: 287(g) = racial profiling. The fact that President Obama still supports this program says worlds about his immigration policy priorities and the value his administration places on the pro-migrant vote.
The Dreamers' goal was to meet Sheriff Conway to challenge his implementation of 287(g) in Gwinnett County. Roberto Lovato of presente.org sent word of how the meeting went yesterday:
[T]he students walked into the Gwinnett County courthouse and demanded to speak to Sheriff today. and they did while wearing shirts emblazoned with the word "UNDOCUMENTED." Rather than face them, Sheriff Conway, the Joe Arpaio of the South, opted to have one of his subordinates deal with the walkers. In sum, the students faced down Sheriff Conway, who, under false or flimsy pretences, has jailed hundreds (almost 500) of undocumented immigrants in Gwinnett county in the past 3 months alone. (for more info on the action, see presente.org website) Conway backed away from doing what he does to immigrants in Gwinnett County on a daily basis: arrest and help deport them! thanks for listening and monitoring and following this important story. more to come soon as the walkers still have another 900 miles and 2 months to go til they reach DC.
Felipe, Gaby, Carlos, and Juan also garnered some local media attention, bringing their message to Atlantans who may never have considered that the undocumented immigrants their politicians rail against might also be their children's classmates and friends. English-language broadcasts can be seen here and here.
Visit the Trail of Dreams website if you'd like to donate to pay for food, water, and supplies so the Dreamers can reach D.C.
Since I work as an immigration attorney at a nonprofit, it is only natural that ICE is not my favorite government agency. Regular readers of the blog probably know that by now. If I worked at the Public Defender's Office, I would regularly (as opposed to occasionally) blog about the perfidy of the Assistant District Attorneys. If I were a cop, I would blog about those weaselly public defenders or the DFHs at the ACLU.
But once in a while I read a story about ICE that surprises me, and I'd like to think I've developed a thick skin about these things over the last few years.
Helen O'Neill writes for the AP about a brother and sister who became confidential informants (CIs) for ICE. Emilio and Analia Maya were introduced to ICE by a friend of Analia's, a police officer named Sydney Mills.
According to Mills, the deal was straightforward: In exchange for working as informants, ICE would help the brother and sister get coveted S visas, which, in rare instances, are awarded to immigrants who help law enforcement.
After working for ICE without pay from 2005 to 2009, sometimes in dangerous undercover situations, ICE turned on the Mayas, arresting and detaining Emilio and putting both siblings into removal proceedings. Officer Mills doesn't know what to make of this:
A 10-year veteran of the police department, Mills had long worked undercover narcotics operations, sometimes with the FBI. He knows how deals are stuck with informants. And though he had never dealt with ICE before, "I assumed it was just another law enforcement agency and the rules would be the same."The golden rule: "You protect your sources, and you never renege on a deal."
At first, I concluded from this story that ICE is just not very good at law enforcement. ICE's stated mission is to "protect the security of the American people and homeland by vigilantly enforcing the nation's immigration and customs laws." Wouldn't that goal be better served by cultivating trustworthy CIs to help ICE target violent offenders, human traffickers, and transnational crime syndicates?
Then I remembered what I've learned from my daily experience dealing with ICE and the immigration bureaucracy: preventing crime is hard, deporting the nearest undocumented gardener, cook, or nanny is easy. When politicians and the press give DHS a free pass, the stated goal of protecting the security of the American people often takes a back seat to the unstated goal of deporting as many brown people as possible.
ICE spokespersons talk up its Criminal Alien Program and Fugitive Operations teams, but don't mention the fact that 73% of people apprehended by the Fugitive Ops teams in recent years had no criminal records, or that the Criminal Alien Program targets people after an arrest, not a conviction, leading to racial profiling by local police who know an arrest on any pretext may lead to deportation.
ICE's shameful treatment of its CIs sends a clear message about its true priorities: Deport the easiest targets first, then combat crime if we get around to it. That's not something I'm happy about supporting with my earnings this tax season, and I won't be voting this fall for any politician who shovels money at ICE's "law enforcement" operations without asking what the agency is doing with it.
I am the son and grandson of American citizens I have been an illegal alien for 19 years so far, originally applied through a fake 'American' lawyer who charged a hefty fee, a few years later it put me into an overstay status because he never filed, I have now spent 17 years applying I have started going through the approval patch affidavits etc but basically been told once they have everything I am subject to a 10 year ban at the end of all this even though I am a retired investor and never worked one day for an American while here...
The problem with immigration is that the processing time frames are inhumane and so long people get old or die waiting and the hoops you need to jump through get smaller and smaller also the fact that you are never given one long list of items needed its always one thing out of dozens sent to you at a time its the carrot in front of the donkey syndrome, this is why many do not bother applying..
You watch the processing time frame speed up if immigration could only collect a fee once they were ready to process a fully eligible application and hand over a green card.
The whole system is a racket to extract fees then find every possible way to draw it out, make it extremely difficult, separte families develop deathly time frames and to find any possible angle to deny no matter how petty.
And what is the point in a ten year ban if you are going to let the applicant apply at the end? Let me answer that one to... The point is by the time 10 years go by the spouse has either died moved on with someone else or given up, if none of those have happened yet then hell let the immigrant pay more fees and apply from where he is that will notch up another 10 year wait for processing adding up to around 20 years since the beginning of the ban surely that will kill of or separate permanently 90% well if anyone is still kicking around after that suck up the fees and look for a loop hole to deny or why not just deny anyway and make a few more loopholes that should reduce whats left to about 1%..
Lets face the fact having discussions on immigration bans and family separation is really pointless, the problems are there because that is how the system is designed its not broken its a perfect money making racket that takes fees and money and does not need to provide a service its a bit like running a bar where people pay in advance for a drink but you make it almost impossible to get in the door or you just plain bar them from coming in for such a long time that they end up walking of after paying in advance.
And don't forget folks sure anybody can apply, sorry what was that sorry we cannot tell you if you are elligible or not you just need to pay the fees wait 10+ years we will let you know at the end.... Meanwhile in the INS tea room laughter and sure anyone can apply NO F-ING REFUNDS!!
Posted by Stuck InTime on 02/03/2010 @ 04:09AM PT
The NY Times reports that Cambodia is deporting Uighur political refugees back to China to be detained, tortured, or killed.
Under pressure from China, and despite the objections of the United States and the United Nations, the Cambodian government on Saturday deported 20 members of the Uighur minority who had sought asylum after fleeing a government crackdown in China.
The U.S. government is unhappy with Cambodia's explanation that it is just "implementing its immigration law," as a spokesman of the Cambodian government put it. "They came illegally without any passports or visas, so we consider them illegal immigrants."
The United States and the United Nations have urged Cambodia not to deport the group. "We are deeply disturbed by the reports that the Cambodian government might forcibly return this group of Uighurs without the benefit of a credible refugee status determination process," said John Johnson, an American Embassy spokesman in Phnom Penh. "The United States strongly urges the Cambodian government to honor its commitments under international law."
I am glad to see the State Department take a stand on behalf of members of this long-suffering ethnic minority.
I wonder, though, if any DOS spokesperson would like to weigh in on the U.S. government's prolonged detention at Guantanamo of Uighur men it knew for years were innocent, and the U.S. refusal to allow any "credible refugee status determination process" for them.
I wonder if the DOS will opine on the cases of any Uighurs currently in removal proceedings in the U.S. and whether they should be sent back to China given the capricious asylum system they must navigate in the U.S. to avoid deportation. One might assume from the NY Times article above that the U.S. has a practice of not deporting Uighurs to face their fate in China. If DHS does have such a policy, I've never heard of it.
Given the U.S.'s substantial credibility gap on the issue of honoring treaty obligations to Uighur refugees, I would suggest that someone explain U.S. immigration policy to DOS employees before they make demands of other countries. But I know that newly-minted Foreign Service Officers typically work in the consular section of whichever U.S. embassy they are first assigned, so they should know the law pretty well. Perhaps the experience of denying visas every day for a couple of years is useful in inoculating FSOs against outside criticism of U.S. immigration law and foreign policy. I suspect that is one reason that FSOs are first sent to Consular.
Nina Bernstein wrote recently in the NY Times about a New Jersey pastor who became an advocate for Indonesian Christians facing deportation and worked out an unusual deal with the government under which many at risk of deportation turned themselves in, agreeing to appear at regular appointments with immigration officials.
The financial crisis that swept through East Asia in 1997 sparked anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia that prompted many ethnic Chinese to flee the country. After 9/11, immigrant men from predominantly Muslim countries, including Indonesia, were required to register with DHS in a sweeping program of racial and religious profiling (pdf) called NSEERS engineered by restrictionist Kris Kobach, then an aide to Attorney General John Ashcroft.
In the past few years, NSEERS began to impact the Indonesian congregation that shared the building with Pastor Seth Kaper-Dale's flock in Highland Park, New Jersey. Families were ripped apart and fathers of U.S. citizen children were deported back to Indonesia. After going to great lengths to prevent one of his own congregants from being deported, Pastor Kaper-Dale negotiated a supervised release for the man. Raids had the community living in fear. So Pastor Kaper-Dale decided to be proactive and urged more Indonesians in the community to come forward and cooperate with DHS.
Under an unusual compact between the pastor and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Newark, four Indonesians have been released from detention in recent weeks, and 41 others living as fugitives from deportation have turned themselves in under church auspices. Instead of being jailed -- as hundreds of thousands of immigrants without criminal records have been in recent years -- they have been released on orders of supervision, eligible for work permits while their lawyers consider how their cases might be reopened.
Though agency officials say the arrangement is simply an example of the case-by-case discretion they often use, the outcome has astonished advocates and experts in immigration enforcement, and raised hopes that it signals some broader use of humanitarian release as the Obama administration vows to overhaul the immigration system.
Reading this story as an immigration attorney, I almost feel sick to my stomach. If Pastor Kaper-Dale has tapped into a kinder, gentler side of Barack Obama's DHS, it is one that has persistently eluded the majority of faith-based and nonprofit immigration attorneys in the U.S. These parishioners have traded their fear of home raids for fear that the next visit to DHS on an order of supervision could be their last, as those with previously-denied cases could at any moment be placed on a plane back home. Recently, a DHS official in Philadelphia frankly acknowledged that ICE prefers not to give advance warning of detention at a scheduled appointment under an order of supervision, since it only makes it harder to locate and deport the person. I have clients on orders of supervision with final orders of removal, and the anxiety that situation produces can be intense. Those parishioners with no previous interaction with the system and no clear path to relief who brought themselves to the attention of the government as part of this deal are making a leap of faith. I hope they each individually had the opportunity to hear from an immigration attorney about the potential downside to this arrangement, which is sudden, unannounced deportation:
for those who turn themselves in, the leap of faith carries big risks. For now, they can check in at a federal office every three months and, if granted a work permit, can secure a driver's license. But they are also vulnerable to immediate deportation. Just this fall, nine Indonesian Christians in Seattle who had been on supervised release for years were abruptly detained, and some were deported.
Cross-posted at Young Philly Politics.
Julio Maldonado was deported to Peru on Thursday, October 22, 2009, after arriving in the U.S. 38 years ago at the age of 3.
He and his cousin, Denis Calderon, had been victims of an attack based on their ethnicity in 1996. Julio was wrongfully convicted of aggravated assault, incarcerated for a total of 8 years, and then deported.
His family's pleas for justice were ignored by local, state, and federal decisionmakers--except for the convicting judge, Judge Gregory Smith, who actually vacated his own verdict after an evidentiary rehearing. That decision was appealed by the District Attorney's office and overturned. A jury of Julio's peers also found him not guilty of the murder of one of his attackers. So how then was Julio locked up for so long and deported, when the convicting judge (in the aggravated assault trial) and the jury (in the murder trial) both decided he was not culpable?
When it came to wrongfully convicting, imprisoning, and deporting Julio, prosecutors and the Department of Homeland Security zealously worked to prevent a just result. When it came to acknowledging that a mistake had been made and families would be torn apart, everyone's hands were tied, from prosecutor Seth Williams to Governor Rendell (mayor of Philadelphia in 1996, now with the power to pardon an egregious error that occurred on his watch) to Thomas Decker, director of Immigration Customs and Enforcement in Philadelphia, to Janet Napolitano, head of DHS.
The case has broader significance, as Seth Williams will likely be Philadelphia's new District Attorney. He will have to decide, along with the mayor and police commissioner, whether to continue along Philadelphia's current track of close cooperation with ICE to target immigrant communities. Currently, Philly PD is routinely arresting Latin@ immigrants for minor traffic stops and turning them directly over to ICE, or actually joining ICE on home raids. This is in direct contravention of Mayor Nutter's expressed desire to make Philly an immigrant-friendly city. It is hard to be friendly when the immigrant community is terrified of the police, which is working hand in glove with the local ICE contingent to deport every last one of them.
Seth Williams didn't lift a finger to undo the damage he had done to Julio Maldonado and his family, despite repeated promises to the family. At least, we have no evidence he took any favorable action.
Will Philadelphia's elected officials side with the immigrant community, or with Lou Dobbs and others who want to see immigrants chased out of the U.S.? Right now, they are saying one thing and doing another.
[Image: Democratic candidate for District Attorney of Philadelphia, Seth Williams.]
"We want you to work with us," Farahi remembers the agents telling him.
And this is when the imam's five-year battle with the federal government began.
"I have no problem working with you guys or helping you out," Farahi said. He could keep them informed about the local Muslim community or translate Arabic. But the relationship, he insisted, would need to be public; others would have to know he was helping the government.
The Stop Deportation network and the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, along with other groups and organisations, are demanding that the first mass deportation flight to southern Iraq, expected to leave on Wednesday, is cancelled and the detainees threatened with forcible removal are released immediately. Over the last week, detainees in various immigration detention centres have been given 'removal directions' clearly stating they will be removed to Iraq, rather than the Kurdistan Regional Government-controlled region, which was stated in previous removals.
Julio Maldonado will be deported this week unless DHS exercises its discretion to wait until Julio's pardon request can be heard. **Action requested: call DHS and Governor Rendell at the numbers below!**
Julio and his cousin Denis Calderon, longtime lawful permanent residents from Peru, were victims of a racially-motivated attack in Philadelphia in 1996 during which Denis was beaten and stabbed. Julio and Denis were wrongfully convicted of aggravated assault while their white attackers were never charged with any crime. The original convicting judge later vacated his own verdict after reviewing expert testimony that later came to light, but the District Attorney's office appealed the decision and won on a technical argument. Now Julio stands on the brink of deportation, 38 years after arriving in the U.S. as a toddler and 32 years after receiving his green card.
Julio has spent the last 4 years in jail for "hindering his own removal" by refusing to sign the papers required to process his Peruvian travel documents. Now the Peruvian consulate has issued temporary travel documents that do not require Julio's consent, and DHS wants to deport him now. Julio filed a request for a pardon from governor Rendell on July 1, 2009, but DHS does not want to wait for a decision on the pardon. In denying Julio's request for a stay of removal last month, DHS held that Julio's desire to remain with his family instead of accepting permanent exile to Peru was considered an adverse factor weighing against an exercise of favorable discretion.
Why does DHS view family unity as an "adverse factor"?
***Please call David Venturella, Acting Director of ICE's Office of Detention and Removal Operation, at (202) 732-3100 to request that DHS allow Julio to stay in the U.S. until his request for a pardon is reviewed by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.***
***Please call Governor Rendell's office at (717) 787-2500 and ask the governor (1) to expedite review of Julio's pardon request and (2) to request that DHS wait to deport him until the pardon request is reviewed.***
If you have not yet signed the petition for Julio and Denis, please do so here.
More complete summaries of the case are available here and here, and a list of coverage is here.
http://call.seiu.org/9/call4alonsoI've written three posts on Jorge-Alonso's case (1 2 3). While I wish I could provide more of an update in this post, all I can really say is that everyone's calls are working, but that it is still not over. The legal details as to why Jorge-Alonso has been able to stay are still unclear, but what is clear is that Jorge-Alonso's only remaining hope continues to be U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray. I'll let Jorge-Alonso explain it to you himself:
