Legal Immigrants Being Deported On Slim Pretexts
| April 23rd, 2008More people are becoming aware of the massive injustices increasingly faced by undocumented immigrants. But now it turns out that even legal immigrants are being deported based on next-to-nothing.
From Asian-Nation:
As the New York Times reports, many legal immigrants are being caught in a web of technicalities, bureaucracy, and injustice and in fact, end up fighting orders from the Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE, the successor to the INS) to be deported back to their sending country, even though they came to the U.S. legally […]
The article includes many examples of how the ICE has used various bureaucratic items to order legal immigrants to be deported: a discrepancy regarding marriage status from 25 years ago, a 10-year old misdemeanor conviction that was wiped from one’s record, green card holders mistakenly voting in state elections, failing to update one’s home address, falsely accusing someone of committing a felony, and not showing up to an ICE office to be fingerprinted even though the person was a quadriplegic. […]
Apparently, a person’s decades of positive actions and contributions to his/her community don’t matter in whether or not they should be considered an American.
What seems to be more important these days is whether they’ve completed a form properly or not.
As C.N. at Asian-Nation points out, this sort of thing is a natural byproduct of the climate created by the “war on terror.”
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:37 am
If I drive around without a license for 10 years without getting caught, and then get busted, should the default be to let me go or prosecute me for not being legally licensed?
On a side note dealing with illegal immigration, I found it very amusing that they caught Cesar Laurean in mexico because he spoke spanish poorly and that prompted a backround check. HOW DARE THEY!
This comment was written by ed.Report this comment to the moderators
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:46 am
Some of these stories are sympathetic, like the Servanos. Others are less so, like the guy who beat up his girlfriend.
No system will be perfect, but I am inclined to agree that legal immigrants, those who go through the system, should be given a bit more slack and a bit more understanding.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:46 am
But now it turns out that even legal immigrants are being deported based on next-to-nothing.
Hm. First, none of the cases cited have so far resulted in an actual deportation. So to make the thread title and your statement above accurate you’ll have to either change them to “… are being threatened with deportation ….” or add some cites of actual deportations and show that this has increased over previous years.
Robert is also correct in that while some of these cases should have been handled better, misrepresenting information about marriage or a previous criminal record is good reason to raise suspicion. Remember that the burden for knowing and following the law is on the immigrant, not on the U.S. government.
The article says:
An assertion for which the author offers exactly no evidence. Such as, for example, a comparison of how many “innocent bystanders” have been affected vs. how many bad guys have actually been caught, plus an estimate of how many bad guys have been deterred from trying to enter the U.S. illegally in the first place. Then there’s the issue of what the definition of “innocent bystander” is. Considering a man who conceals a conviction for domestic violence as an “innocent bystander” is a novel position for this blog.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:50 am
The linked article states:
The plight of immigrant widows and widowers is discussed in Episode 353 of the public radio show This American Life, entitled The Audacity of Government. The second segment of that show, entitled “This American Wife,” uncovers a strange practice within the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. If a foreign national marries a U.S. citizen and schedules an interview for a green card, but the U.S. citizen dies before the interview takes place, the foreign national is scheduled for deportation with no appeal—even if the couple has children who are U.S. citizens. Courts have repeatedly declared this practice illegal, but this has not altered the Government’s behavior. The 20-min. segment features interviews with a lawyer representing 130+ people who are trapped in this situation.
Does this reflect anxiety over the need to protect our borders? Perhaps. But the first segment of that This American Life episode, entitled “The Prez vs. The Commish,” discusses the Administration’s interference with the operations of the US/Canadian International Boundary Commission. In the interest of monitoring the borders, the Commission barred construction of structures within X feet of the border. The Administration concluded that the need to monitor our borders must give way to a more fundamental need – private property rights – and has therefore basically abrogated the 100-yr-old treaty. Go figure.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:11 am
Citizens who are Latino have been deported and threatened with deportion as well. I’ve spoken with several of the latter in recent months who were threatened at the county jail one after receiving a bad beating by a police officer.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I agree that it’s bad that the citizenship process involves so much paperwork and so many requirements to meet, and that ICE is taking a hard line on people who don’t meet them. But people are way too quick to blame problems with our immigration policies on the War on Terror. The laws that these deportations are based on, and the attitude to enforcing them, date back to 1996. Click through to the NYTimes article linked in the original post, and you’ll see a nice chart illustrating that Bill Clinton is as much to blame as George Bush.
This comment was written by Stentor.Report this comment to the moderators