deportation

by SCwpadmin SCwpadmin 339 Comments

Friday Feels: Casa de Paz

If you need a some inspiration heading into this weekend, you need to read this recent feature in Westword magazine. The article highlights the amazing work being done by Sarah Jackson, founder of Casa de Paz, a nonprofit that provides housing, meals, visits, and transportation to families affected by immigrant detention. We should also add that Sarah Jackson was recently honored by the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN) for her work to support immigrants.

Below is an excerpt from the article, to read the full piece, click here.

“The experience that had the biggest impact on Jackson, though, was meeting a man named Abel on the Mexican side of the border. Abel had grown up in the United States, and as far as he was concerned, Mexico was a foreign country. He only spoke English, and he hadn’t known that he was undocumented until he went to get a driver’s license at the age of sixteen.

“So they were deporting him ‘back home,’ but his home was the United States, because his parents brought him here when he was a child,” Jackson says.”

by SCwpadmin SCwpadmin 493 Comments

Woman Given Advanced Permission to Travel was Deported on her Return to the U.S.

Lesly Cortez-Martinez, an undocumented mother of 3 United States citizen children, was deported last week after the United States granted her advanced permission to travel to Mexico.  Ms. Cortez-Martinez immigrated to the United States at the age of 15 with her family and was granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.  Before traveling to Mexico she requested advanced travel permission from the United States government to allow her to visit her family in Mexico and return to the United States.

When Ms. Cortez-Martinez attempted to return from visiting her family and re-enter the United States last week at Chicago O’Hare International Airport immigration authorities detained her due to a 2004 deportation order that was in Ms. Cortez-Martinez’s immigration history.  Despite having the advanced permission to travel, Ms. Cortez-Martinez was deported back to Mexico because of this 2004 deportation order.

After national outrage at the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to deport Ms. Cortez-Martinez, she was allowed to re-enter the United States and be reunited with her husband and three children.  The Department of Homeland Security has stated that Ms. Cortez-Martinez will likely be placed into deportation proceedings after her return.  Ms. Cortez-Martinez’s experience raises significant concerns for other noncitizens who have been granted advanced travel permission and highlights the risks involved in international travel plans on advanced parole.

Before international travel, and especially for those who are traveling on advanced parole, noncitizens should consult with an experienced immigration attorney to discuss the risks involved in their travel before departing the United States.

 

 

by SCwpadmin SCwpadmin 96 Comments

Wave of Noncitizens with Final Removal Orders Arrested for Deportation

Over the New Year the Department of Homeland Security carried out an aggressive sweep and arrested 121 noncitizens for deportation. These noncitizens are largely asylum seekers who fled to the United States from Central American last summer. Many of them were residing in Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas, and all of them were subject to final orders of removal for failing to win their asylum cases before the immigration courts. According to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, this large-scale deportation effort is intended deter other immigrants from crossing the US border without permission. While no other raids have been announced, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s official position is to conduct daily immigration enforcement.

by SCwpadmin SCwpadmin 101 Comments

ICE Releases Report on FY 2013 Deportations

Earlier this month, U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released their annual report on removals for fiscal year 2013.  ICE performed 368,644 removals, of which 133,551 were within U.S. borders.  According to ICE, the majority of individuals who were picked up within the U.S. have criminal convictions, suggesting that they came into contact with law enforcement, which then triggered an order of deportation. Of the 235,093 deportations not originating from within the interior of the U.S.,  95% were intercepted by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) before being turned over to ICE for removal proceedings. ICE maintains that it focuses its efforts on the deportation of individuals with criminal records, while also preventing immigrants from crossing the border without documentation.

Most of the deported individuals hail from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador respectively, with the vast majority being Mexican nationals.

 

 

 

Top