Thread: Case exposes odd twist: Feds usually reject those who surre

http://www.denverpo st.com/business/ ci_4649395

"I am here illegally. They wouldn't take me in."

Case exposes odd twist: Feds usually reject those who surrender

<mailto:bfinley@denverpost. com?subject=DenverPost .com:%20> By Bruce Finley,

Denver Post Staff Writer

Article Last Updated:11/12/ 2006 11:53:01 PM MST

Federal agents who hunt for illegal immigrants have a policy against
arresting those who voluntarily turn themselves in - as Eloina Meza
discovered recently in Denver.

After hiding for 12 years, Meza mustered her courage and approached
immigration agents at their offices - "I saw the security, the police, the
cameras up around the room" - and tried to surrender.

Her son, Edgar, 8, a U.S. citizen who suffers from Down syndrome and heart
trouble, needs her constantly. A single mother, Meza had grown increasingly
worried that, if immigration agents were to catch her, she and Edgar could
be separated.

Instead, she wanted to turn herself in and have a judge review her case so
that she might stay legally in Denver with her son.

But immigration officials on Sept. 14 turned Meza and Edgar away.

"I was saying, 'I am here illegally.' They wouldn't take me in," she said.
"I thought they'd at least ask some questions."

Meza, 44, crossed the border from Mexico in 1994. She has worked several
jobs around Denver, from $4.50-an-hour packaging in a warehouse to a stint
with the U.S. Postal Service.

Her situation exposes an odd dimension to the nation's newly beefed-up
immigration enforcement system: The same agents who labor to find illegal
immigrants on the streets and in jails - they caught and deported 100,100
noncriminal immigrants such as Meza last year - generally won't accept those
who surrender asking for mercy.

"Walk-ins" taken in past

The Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement division "must use its limited resources and prioritize its
mission to target aliens that are the greatest threat to the community -
criminal aliens and terrorists," ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said.

Yet ICE agents around the country have some discretion, according to a 2005
ICE legal memo. Denver agents in the past did accept "walk-ins" but have
discontinued that practice.

A Sept. 14 letter from Meza's attorney, Francesca Ramos, asks Jeff Copp,
ICE's Denver district special agent in charge, for "your assistance in
having Ms. Meza placed in removal proceedings without detention."

The goal, Ramos wrote, "is to seek cancellation of removal to ensure that
she will not be separated from her very ill son."

ICE officials gave no response. The Postal Service confirmed her letter was
delivered Sept. 15.

Immigrant-rights advocates call the ICE turn-away policy inhumane. "You
ought to be able to turn yourself in," said Robert Deasy, spokesman for the
American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington, D.C.

Meza probably "is entitled" to stay in the country with her son under
immigration- law provisions that grant legal status to people in the country
illegally for more than 10 years who also can prove an exceptional
humanitarian need, Deasy said, "but the enforcement priorities of the
Department of Homeland Security do not appear to include enforcement
activities that will benefit a deserving individual."

U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo - a leading immigration hard-liner in Congress, which
recently pushed through millions of dollars to toughen enforcement - also is
incensed.

"Is a policeman going to say, 'I'm sorry, I can't take you in right now
because I've got to direct traffic?"' asked Tancredo, a Littleton
Republican.

"(ICE agents) have a responsibility to enforce the law," he said. "... And
they can't use the old excuse about resources. They've gotten a lot more.
What are they using that for? What do they need resources for if that person
walked in? They don't have to search for them."

Now Meza and Ramos say they're thinking about voluntarily approaching ICE
agents again.

"I feel more pressure, more fear," Meza said.

She lives in an area where illegal immigrants struggle to get by juggling
jobs and looking out for one another to avoid police and possible
deportation.

Meza said she's always turning her head, checking when she leaves her shared
rental house. She drags Edgar out with her late at night to a grocery store,
thinking it's the only safe time to get food.

For years, she has been working up the nerve to turn herself in, praying for
guidance at a church where parishioners urged her to visit a lawyer.

Lost her job after 9/11

Edgar was born May 22, 1998, at an Aurora hospital, where doctors warned
that "he is very fragile." In addition to Down syndrome, he has a congenital
heart problem that required three open-heart surgeries to put in a
prosthetic mitral valve and a pacemaker, according to medical records.

"He requires close supervision. His pacemaker needs to be checked monthly,
and he needs to be monitored carefully due to the anticoagulants, " said a
letter from Dr. Robert Wolfe at the University of Colorado Health Sciences
Center. "Moving away from this center is potentially life-threatening for
Edgar."

Another factor compelling Meza to beg for legal residency: She hasn't been
able to work since 2001. After her stint with the Postal Service, she
settled into a job at Pour la France cafe at Denver International Airport.
But after the 9/11 attacks, airport supervisors checked workers' Social
Security numbers. She was found out.

Now, she relies on friends to get by. Medicaid pays Edgar's medical bills.

"In Mexico, if you go to the hospital and don't have money, they won't help
you," she said.

She has dreamed of returning one day to her home in southern Mexico. But
today, Edgar's needs come first.

She helps him slide in the park after school and even plays soccer with him,
she said. His smile ignites her whole world.

"He must always be with me," she said.

Immigrant-rights advocates call the ICE turn-away policy inhumane

If you arrest them, it's inhumane and if you DON'T arrest them it's inhumane!

I want to know how she got a job with the Postal Service. Don't you have to pass some kind of exam? It's not very comforting to think that an illegal has access to our mail system.

A young fellow I know said the post office is full of Latino workers. They would not consider him because he had no diploma. My guess would be that they give them a points preference like veterans. Hiring points to increase your test score.