What part of illegal don't they get.Efforts to deport illegal immigrants thought to be gang members or sexual predators have snared those with no criminal past, advocates say
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Casualties of a crackdown
Efforts to deport illegal immigrants thought to be gang members or sexual predators have snared those with no criminal past, advocates say
BY BART JONES
STAFF WRITER
A desperate Josu� Suarez needed to land a job, but as an undocumented immigrant he lacked valid identification. So a year ago he went to the Department of Motor Vehicles, walked over to the counter and handed over a phony work permit as identification to apply for a non-driver's ID.
DMV employees quickly noticed the bogus document, and department investigators arrested Suarez, 21, of Central Islip. When he showed up at Nassau County jail to serve his 18-day sentence for using a forged instrument in January, authorities ran his name through a database and discovered he had an outstanding deportation order issued in 1990 -- a year after his family brought him across the U.S.-Mexico border at age 5.
On March 3, he was deported to his native Honduras, a country he barely remembers after growing up on Long Island. Today, he and 14 other relatives sleep on the floor of a great-aunt's house in San Pedro Sula.
"They sent me to a country where I know nobody, where I have no life and no future. Every day is a new shocker for me," Suarez said in a telephone interview, adding that where he lives the toilet doesn't work and the water from the kitchen sink reeks. "I'm not going to drink water you can smell."
Suarez has been caught up in what immigration lawyers and advocates said is an escalating crackdown on undocumented immigrants, with beefed-up immigration and law enforcement agencies cooperating more closely and sharing more sophisticated databases. Authorities say the campaign is designed to catch gang members and sexual predators who are here illegally, but immigration advocates say undocumented immigrants who have committed minor offenses or have no criminal record also are being arrested and deported. The number of noncriminal deportations has more than doubled in the last four years, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"When you have a crackdown on immigrants, what happens is a lot of innocent people get swept up," said Huntington-based attorney David Sperling, who represents Suarez. "They're tearing families apart and causing terrible trauma."
Suarez's mother, Maria Suarez, a Bay Shore factory worker, is devastated. "As a mother, as a human being, it is unjust that they deport a boy without investigating the situation," Suarez, 45, said in Spanish. "With so many criminals here, they take an innocent boy."
Her son could have qualified for temporary legal status in the United States a few years ago, but she said she could only afford the $500 immigration and legal fees for her and elder son Franklin, 23.
In the past, undocumented immigrants like Suarez and Brazil native Marino Gomes da Silva, who was picked up in a sweep of unlicensed home improvement contractors in Suffolk County last fall and will be deported this month, generally remained undetected in the United States for years, Sperling and other attorneys said. Gomes, of Bay Shore, is married to a U.S. citizen and helps parent her two U.S.-born children, but like Suarez had an outstanding deportation order he said he never knew about.
A zero-tolerance policy
What immigrant advocates call a "zero-tolerance" policy began after the 2001 terrorist attacks and has intensified in the last year or so, said Judy Golub of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington, D.C. She noted that ICE deported a record number of undocumented immigrants in fiscal 2004, 161,346, about half of them without criminal records, according to ICE. That's an increase from 145,651 the previous year and 116,026 in fiscal 2002.
At the same time, state DMV figures show the number of people arrested for using phony documents has soared from 140 in 2000 to 870 in 2004.
ICE spokesman Marc Raimondi said the agency has stepped up enforcement of immigration laws after it was created two years ago to replace the former Immigration and Naturalization Service to keep the nation safe.
"The way to restore integrity to the U.S. immigration system is to enforce the laws and that's what we are doing vigorously," said Raimondi, adding that ICE is on track to break its deportation record this year. "For far too long the immigration system was seen as optional. Our message today is if you have an order of removal or if you're here illegally, you need to start moving toward the door or you're going to get paid a visit by ICE."
He added that the agency prioritizes who it goes after, targeting gang members and sexual predators. But, he added, any person who entered the country illegally should be deported. Deportations of undocumented immigrants with no criminal records have jumped from 34,487 in 2000 to 76,181 in 2004. They've also gone from making up one-third of all those deported to nearly one-half.
Immigration-control proponents said ICE's stricter enforcement is a step in the right direction, although it reaches a small number of undocumented immigrants compared with the estimated 10 million to 12 million believed to be in the United States.
Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., a think-tank that favors tightening immigration, said that while he sympathizes with Suarez, his parents are to blame for bringing him here illegally.
"They knew they were breaking the law and putting their child in a situation where he would grow up as an illegal alien," he said. "The family is in effect saying the American people have to bear the cost for their law-breaking and their mistake."
But immigration advocates counter that the immigration system doesn't work because hardly any U.S. visas are approved for low-skill workers for jobs in construction, landscaping, restaurants and factories. They're calling for comprehensive reform creating a mechanism for them to migrate legally, and note that President George W. Bush has proposed a guest-worker program.
"We need to enforce the law, but the law doesn't make sense right now," Golub said. "We want the government to focus resources on the people who mean to do us harm, not the people who are uniting with family members or working."
Suarez can barely remember the night his family crossed the border on foot and in a rubber inner tube they floated across the R�o Grande. They were detained by immigration authorities in Texas and released, his mother said.
The couple and their children -- then ages 11, 7, 5 and 2 -- made their way to Long Island unaware that an immigration judge in Texas had ordered them deported a year after they crossed the border.
Maria Suarez asked that her family be given political asylum in 1990, and they all received legal Social Security numbers and work permits. By 16, Josu� was on the 4 p.m.-1 a.m. shift at Wal-Mart in Islandia. He paid taxes and filed tax returns.
When his permit expired, Josu� wanted to work to help support his mother, who had separated from his father. So in April 2004, he followed an aunt's advice and used the bogus work permit to get the DMV identification.
After the outstanding 1990 deportation order was uncovered when he got to jail, Sperling asked that Suarez's case be reopened and he be allowed to stay. But immigration Judge Bertha A. Zuniga denied the motion, writing that "while this court is sympathetic to respondent having been acclimated to living in the U.S., nonetheless his family bears the burden of his unfortunate predicament." She said Suarez could have taken action after he turned 18 to remedy his immigration problems, such as applying for the temporary protected status his mother obtained.
He was taken to Passaic County Jail in New Jersey, where on March 3 guards told him he was going to Central America. "I never in a million years thought I had a deportation order when I was 6 years old," Suarez said.
He can't get a job in Honduras, the second-poorest country in the hemisphere, because the economy is a shambles. He said he was robbed at gunpoint by men who entered the house and took $250.
"He's being returned to a place that's increasingly dangerous" because of street gangs who target people like him, said Jodi Goodwin, an immigration attorney in Texas, who works with Honduran immigrants.
Suarez has company. His father, Jorge, 46, was picked up by immigration agents at his house in Brentwood in March and deported. Suarez's girlfriend, Honduran native Antonia Madrid, 20, left Central Islip shortly after to join him.
The Suarezes are not the only undocumented immigrants on Long Island arrested in the crackdown. Gomes da Silva came to the United States in 2000, fell in love with Bay Shore resident Ana Carrera, and became a stepfather to her children, Frankie, 8, and Angel, 15.
But last October Gomes, 33, was picked up by Suffolk police during a sweep of unlicensed home improvement contractors ordered by County Executive Steve Levy. Police ran his name through a federal database, which yielded an old deportation order issued against Gomes in Harlingen, Texas, that he didn't know about, Sperling said.
After a night in jail at the Third Precinct in Brentwood, ICE agents took him to Passaic County Jail, where he spent three weeks. He was released after his case was reopened, and later at an immigration court hearing agreed to leave for Brazil by May 12.
"I almost can't sleep, always thinking about how I have to leave," Gomes said in the Spanish he has learned from Carrera. "I don't want to go."
Carrera, 34, who emigrated from Guatemala when she was 5, worries about how she and her sons will survive without Gomes. "It's OK to get people who commit these crimes, these sex offenders," she said. "But they get the wrong ones, ones who are working hard and trying to maintain their families."
Levy said his campaign is aimed at undocumented immigrants who commit serious crimes. Gomes' plight, he said, is largely the result of actions by federal immigration agents. "Once these needed stings to curtail unscrupulous contractors are concluded, it's up to the federal authorities to decide what will happen to persons determined to be here illegally," Levy said.
Gomes acknowledges he entered the country illegally -- to flee the poverty of Brazil, where he started working in construction at age 7. He said he was detained by immigration agents in Texas, signed papers in English he didn't understand, and was released, thinking he was free. An immigration judge later ordered his deportation.
Now many of Gomes' and Carrera's friends are writing to immigration authorities to keep Gomes in the United States. "Marino and Ana belong together," wrote Freeport podiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Warren, who has employed Carrera as his office manager for 15 years. "They are a perfect pair."
Carrera has filed an application to bring Gomes back as the spouse of a U.S. citizen, but Sperling said it would take at least nine months before immigration officials reach a decision. "Everyone deserves a chance," she said.
Suarez also has few if any options for returning legally because none of his immediate relatives are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, Sperling said. His outlook may be bleak but Suarez isn't giving up hope of returning to Long Island. "That's where my home is," he said, "whether the government likes it or not."
Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.
