The long road home
Deported illegal workers face the long arm of the law
http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2008...
Most of the 28 shackled, brown-skinned men deported March 13 by federal agents from the Twin Falls airport still saw giving up as out of the question.
They teased fellow travelers with unusual last names: Salado - risqu脙漏 - and Lechuga - lettuce. They stayed jovial at the end of a video informing them of their rights. On the grimmest of days, they tried to raise each other's spirits.
There were other reasons to eagerly board the flight. Some wanted to escape the blustery chill. For others, the unmarked MD-83 jet, with U.S. Marshals and government contractors for flight attendants, offered a first-ever flight.
In this crowd of strangers, a sense of comradery took hold, making the trip more endurable.
Crossing a legal border
Antonio Carrillo could see only two options: give up and go home or fight deportation.
The majority of the deportees - 15 in all - took seats toward the back of of the 172-seat jet. They remained apart from those who were not fighting deportation.
At the plane's final stop, in Phoenix, the 15 involuntary deportees would go before a judge to make one last plea to stay in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say all will certainly lose.
"Most of them, they don't have a case," said Steven Branch, ICE's Salt Lake City-based director of detention and removal. His office has handles an average of 3,750 removals per year from Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Montana.
Those who fight deportation and lose are sent home under a removal order. They face a felony charge if they return to the U.S.
Those who chose not to fight are simply returned to Mexico. It they sneak back across the border, they face no criminal charge. Some make the round-trip more than once.
"I'd rather obtain a removal order to stop the revolving door," Branch said. "Sometimes a felony return sinks in and it scares the heck out of them."
The deportees' hopeful pursuit for appeals may also describe their obedient - almost passive - behavior as they are processed.
Since the summer of 1998, authorities have corralled Montana and Idaho deportees in Twin Falls for shipment to their native country without ever having a serious incident. Not once have the armed ICE officers and Marshals needed to pull a trigger.
The closest thing anyone recalls to an escape is a man who once tried to run, only to bounce off a locked detention cell door in Salt Lake City.
International stockade
Montana and Idaho mainly by local law enforcement from crimes ranging from a speeding ticket to murder. A smaller group are arrested by immigration agents.
Arrests made directly by ICE or U.S. Border Patrol agents can often start with an operation targeting criminal aliens but lead to arrests of non-criminal immigrants caught in the cross-fire.
Since the inception of ICE in March 2003, immigration agents have arrested and detained 3,355 immigrants in six south-central Idaho counties, according to ICE records obtained by a public information request.
"It's a tough job," Branch said. "We knock on doors at 6 o'clock in the morning. The whole family is there. 'Come outside so we can arrest you away from your family.' People don't realize we don't make the laws up. We enforce the laws. Congress has passed the laws."
In exceptional cases, ICEagents allow families to fly home together voluntarily on commerical flights.
When the jails across Idaho and Montana fill up, usually once or twice a week. Vans haul the men to the TwinFalls County jail for the night. The next morning after breakfast at the jail, ICE agents transfer them to a federal processing office on Addison Avenue East, where they are deposited into a cubic, white-walled holding cell with a single toilet that rests an inch out of view of a surveillance camera.
The group grows to only 28 today but agents have seen it swell to as many as 75 men. Women are always kept separate. After the deportees watch a 40-minute movie about their rights, they are brought one-by-one out of the room by the much smaller number of agents. Their morning breath festers in the close quarters. They are cuffed and shackled to belly chains, inspected, then returned to the cell until the bus in the back parking lot is ready to go.
Once the processing is complete, they load into a white bus parked in a gated area behind the building. With the exception of screens on the windows that prevents the public from looking in, the 47-seat bus looks like a Greyhound bus.
But on the inside, the front is split from the main cabin by a metal divider. The bus is wired - with monitors showing officers activity in the back and with a scrambled federal radio channel that connects the officers on board to the several vans caravaning to the airport.
The vehicles wait on the tarmac for an unmarked charter jet containing only U.S. Marshals and private contractors, who will fly them to Salt Lake City to pick up a second batch of immigrants. Then to scoop up more at another regional city, and on until El Paso, Texas, and finally Phoenix, Ariz.
But these flights won't go to their native countries - whether Mexico or elsewhere. Those flights, which will happen later, entail handing the immigrants off to their respective governments.
Preparing a defense
During this process, the men, some who cannot read, usually with meager educations, will not be afforded a lawyer. They lack awareness of immigration law, or U.S. laws altogether for that matter, which leaves them to quietly invent the odds of winning their case, and an argument for swaying a judge.
What's Antonio Carrillo's case?
At the ICE office on Addison Avenue East, his mind is not on the departure two hours away, or even his home in Chihuahua Parral, Mexico. It's on his girlfriend in Bozeman, Mont., who is entering her third trimester of pregnancy, and their impending wedding.
He has told her not to worry: he has no legal help, but he'll take care of it. After all, he and eight of the other men today have committed no crime, beyond a traffic ticket.
"She knows I'm in jail," Carrillo said, looking prim in a black pinstripe buttoned shirt. "She doesn't know what's going to happen. She doesn't know (if I lose) I can never come back."
He threw his hands into the air, "Maybe I'll win."
It's worse for Carrillo, 19, if he loses the hearing.
It will mean he cannot simply marry his fiancee and move back because that would trigger a felony. If he voluntarily left, it would give him a blank slate to the American government. He seems unclear on this point.
Still at the processing office, the bus is ready to take the men to the airport. Carrillo returns to the holding cell, where men are called out by agents wearing blue latex gloves to be searched and cuffed.
Carrillo, who was happy being photographed before the cuffs went on, now declines to have his picture taken. ICE gives the men street clothes so they don't have to wear the jail garb of the county where they were arrested. It's important to him that he not be viewed as a criminal.
Roots of an arrest
It's also important for Luis Delacruz, of central Peru. As a convicted criminal, he has no chance of winning his appeal.
But he has a plan:Make a case against racism.
After joining his brother and cousins in Hailey five years ago, Delacruz, 32, had a roofing job. He bought a car and hoped to start saving money - money that might justify leaving his wife back home in Peru.
But then Delacruz had too much to drink and tried to buy more. He showed his Peruvian ID to a mini-mart clerk, who reported him. Soon afterward, a Blaine County deputy arrested him for driving under the influence.
To Delacruz, the cause of his deportation isn't his status as an illegal immigrant or drinking and driving. It's racism.
"Why do they imagine these things about us?" he said with a sigh. "I'm leaving with what I came with. I'm not thinking about coming back. You're too far from the people you love."
That's the sentiment of the case he'll make, which carries no legal weight, at the civil proceeding.
He recalls leaving his wife at the airport in Peru five years ago, promising her he'd return with more money than he left with. She bawled, and even reconsidered letting him go.
He's protesting his deportation, he said, because he still has debts here and feels ashamed that he won't be able to pay it back.
If he wins his appeal, he says, he'll be back to pay up.
Chances of that happening are slim.
It's unclear what happens to the immigrants once they reach their seats inside the airplane. The charter plane, unlike the bus, looks on the inside like a typical airliner. As the Marshals finish packing plastic garbage bags containing their livelihoods - a book, an extra pair of clothes, a cowboy hat, court papers - into the undercarriage, something shuts off.
The men lose their smiles. The laughter, both contrived for each other and authentic, halts. The men, all with closely cropped black hair, stare forward at the seat ahead. As Marshals retract the stairwell, the cabin permeates with only the calm hum of the engines. They fought deportation because they have the right to do so.
I don;t agree with any of what is said in this article. skip the sob story part, I dont feel sorry for them. I hope this happens more and more often until we are rid of the illegals. Then they can take the story home to those who would try and explain to them, dont do it, things have changed.... no jobs, no place to live, no benefits, cant drink and drive, might as well stay in our own country.
I really want to know, how you get so many characters for your question? I tried asking a question some time back and there was not enough space, like yours. Hi,
I used "Credit Solution" to settle my debt and improve my credit score.They managed to reduce my debt up to 58%.It's legitimate.I came across this company on NBC News Special Edition.Check it out here:
http://www.x.se/a5nf Isn't Idaho the militia (redneck) capitol of america now. Save the pro-whatever postings on yahoo. sure, there is truth: pl see the followig if u have spar time for us:Hello robin1231hotmailcom
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McCain's Manifesto
While refusing to back off his support for the war, McCain is charting a path separate from Bush.
- By David S. Broder
Commentsrobin1231hotmailcom wrote:
mcCain may or may not be gop nominee for nov 4,2008 as coplaints were find u s distrit court in many districts wherijn election for u s president is due,allegation have been made in courts that republican human_gods and democratic devils in gop is trying to push mcCain nomination, but he is most likely to fade out of race when corruption in influence pedalling against elderly sex and passion as pursuit is established for free paxton aircraft use, lobbyist for free repeated free companionships with paxtn lobbyist (female) for discretionsl usa for pleasant female companionship at mccain's sr citizen's age ismore critiical thab spitzer sex ith younger woman, asspitzer sex and sexual pastime did not involve influence pedalling but mccains sexual free companionship involved sex for happy companionship and sexual pursuits as evidenced by repeated meeting and mccain clealy rewarde of influence pedalling which is a felony offence. spitzer had to resignas governor, mccain has hadto quit presidential race for extreme mockery in his self interest leadership and abuse of u s senaorial power,if allegation reported by new york times reporter in investigfated hby fbi mccain's presidential ambition shall turn ijto fear of mccain be sent to jail rather go to white house:
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Open Question: the reverend dr kamal karna roy wrote the century old dysfunction of jungle democratic conditions globewide?Posted by carposter Published in Newsobama john mccain and hillary clinton were accused in news media for extremely serious corruptions participated in their career. federal investigations were demanded against each of them; hearings on senate floors were damanded ? do u know the court actions filed in 26 + federal jurisdictions alleging multiple vioations of laws; pl keep track of court findings as the orders may change political spectrums o usa. Of course if u have time to learn unusual events of nation in controversies. pl see below as well: belly boosts risk of later dementia PAKISTAN Elections Usher in a New Face By Zahid Hussain, Ron Moreau and Michael Hirsh | NEWSWEEK Mar 3, 2008 Issue 芦 Return to Article Discuss Comments: Enter Your Comment Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 03/27/2008 7:57:44 AM Comment: pakistan's new found democracy is very encouraging.; it may start a new balance of military and political balance in regions of indian subcontinent and allied nations in neiorhood at the behest of power_boss USA.elected leaders and gillani have ethical and political duties to we the peopole of pakistan to preserve democracy intact. Pl do not try to unseat mussaruff right away which may start internal military problems in pakistan with assisting powers including usa, as big powers may not show a reason to intervene and make democracy in limbo for uncertain periods., The reverend dr kamal karna k roy's views were expressed by rev mr hon'ble paromita roy badyawith assistants and associated clergies viz atreyee sen, gargi lahiri. young legy in traing ms dishari sen roy and rev ms mita r das of birati , hospital rdpsnimta 24 Parganasnorth.w . b india facility;chief rev lisa alston mew yok 10301 Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 03/23/2008 7:47:56 PM Comment: by The Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 03/23/2008 7:46:04 PM Comment: Total Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 03/20/2008 10:57:12 PM Comment: given an premansu das, gargi lahiri, Atreyee r sen, rev ms newer politician, a true republican like many of us and Comment: .This church is in the minority-MOST African American churches to not here anything about the white race our government being preached! Posted By: Alvy @ 03/20/2008 17:00:29 Comment: And I'm sure that your reseach into black churches is as comprehensive as your advice.. Posted By: candacetx @ 03/20/2008 4:52:09 PM Comment: I am deeply saddened by the narrow perspective that has been given by some of our previous postings. Why am I sad? I am sad that the real issues surrounding the democratic nomination/campaign process are now being washed away with distractions. Why do I refer to the subject matter at hand as a distraction? One explanation comes to mind...smoke screen. Why are we just now hearing of Senator Obama's former Pastor's statements at the height of his campaign? Why has the media failed to highlight other Pastors (white and black) who had similar messages around 911? Why hasn't anyone brought up any real issues surrounding Obama's character or skills as a leader? Maybe, this is all that they could come up with? Maybe, these persons have been searching all along to dig up something to harm the campaign? It seems they had to dig up something almost seven years old to do so. My real question is why now? Why are we trying assassinate Senator Obama's character based upon his former Pastor's emotional 911 sermon? Can anyone recall how high our emotions (good and bad) were back then? Since then, we have as "united" people been making strives towards r |
