A Mother Deported, and a Child Left Behind

a child left behind?? Yet another Bush** lie exposed...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/24/nyregion/24deport.html?hp&ex=1101358800&en=3d1a75f2b779d127&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Nonregistrants, try this allegedly blog-friendly link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/24/nyregion/24deport.html?ex=1258952400&en=e7025fbde6a88941&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

Her mother, Berly, 47, who migrated to the United States illegally a decade ago, went to the immigration office on a routine visit to renew her work authorization. But because an old deportation order had resurfaced, she was quickly clapped into handcuffs, and within hours placed on a plane to her native Honduras, unable to say goodbye to her husband and little girl....

No one keeps track of exactly how many American children were left behind by the record 186,000 noncitizens expelled from the United States last year, or the 887,000 others required to make a "voluntary departure." But immigration experts say there are tens of thousands of children every year who lose a parent to deportation. As the debate over immigration policy heats up, such broken families are troubling people on all sides, and challenging schools and mental health clinics in immigrant neighborhoods....

In Brooklyn, similar cases cause concern for Birdette Gardiner-Parkinson, the clinical director at the Caribbean Community Mental Health program at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center. In one, she said, an outgoing, academically gifted 12-year-old began failing classes, mutilating herself and having suicidal thoughts after her Colombian father disappeared into removal proceedings. In another case, nightmares and school failure plague the youngest of six children whose father, a cabdriver with 20 years' residence in the United States, was deported to Nigeria six hours after he reported for a green card interview, seemingly for unpaid traffic fines, Ms. Gardiner-Parkinson said....

In the Bronx, Mr. Feliz, 48, who was disabled by a back injury in a workplace accident four years ago, said he was struggling to support Virginia without his wife's earnings and was also being treated for depression. He did not have the heart to tell Virginia her mother had been deported, he added. Instead, he initially told Virginia that her mother was caring for a sick relative in Honduras, a story her mother has repeated in telephone calls.

"Disappeared into removal proceedings"? Sounds like the sort of thing that usually happens, ironically, in South America...

And a happy Thanksgiving to you, Messrs. Bush**, Ridge et al. Hope you sleep well tonight -- beter than Virginia, anyway :grr:

Deported for unpaid traffic fines? Wow, how nice to know. I wonder if they deport for jaywalking, too.....

--even misdemeanors from years ago where the fine was paid and/or time served. Absolute double jeopardy, but when did the Law ever stop BushCo?

My Jamaican husband is caught up in their nightmare right now--he must show court records of a misdemeanor marijuana bust from 7 years ago and probably will be ordered to report to a judge for possible deportation. They have taken his passport and green card, hopefully these will be returned at the end of the week when he shows the court records to the immigration official. Luckily he falls in the one loophole: misdemeanor possession of marijuana less than 30 grams is not a deportable offense--but of course he could still be ordered to see the judge and will have to hire a lawyer to make a case for a waiver. However, he is so turned off he is going back to Jamaica anyway as soon as his docs are returned and never coming back. I might follow him there--but we are divorcing anyway so maybe I'll go to Canada. The way we are treating our hard-working immigrants is atrocious and I hope anybody from The Islands and other places who has a dream of "making it in America" will look long and hard at the situation before coming into such an ignorant, abusive and thankless situation.