Thread: Mother, soccer coach faces deportation

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/ ... 339807.htm

Deysi Ramirez was pulled over for expired tags. Now she's likely Guatemala-bound, without her family.

MIKE DRUMMOND
mdrummond@charlotteobserver.com

Joan Larson wheeled her charcoal Ford Mustang to the county jail Thursday and sighed, "This is without a doubt a hopeless cause."

The Charlotte lawyer and former immigration officer was fighting an eleventh-hour battle to keep client Deysi Ramirez from being deported. But Larson conceded the government had an airtight case.

Ramirez was stopped two weeks ago in Union County for expired vehicle tags. When police asked, she and her husband admitted that they were illegal immigrants. Local authorities discovered immigration officials had a warrant to deport her. They arrested Ramirez and let her husband go.

Friends say she arrived in the United States from civil war-torn Guatemala in the mid-1990s. Ramirez applied for political asylum years ago, but reportedly failed to keep immigration officials posted on her whereabouts, triggering the deportation order.

Yet the forlorn fugitive pictured in a Mecklenburg County jail mug shot also is a volunteer soccer coach, a mother of three U.S.-born children and a poultry plant worker who has lived in Monroe for the past eight years. Her husband crossed from Mexico and fears being deported, longtime friend Cindy Alvord says. Should they both get kicked out of the country, their children could become wards of the state.

Ramirez's case comes as hundreds of thousands of Latinos protested this week against proposed immigration legislation. Her plight also embodies the complex and emotional aspects of the immigration debate, where otherwise law-abiding families face being torn apart amid public pressure to deport those in the country illegally.

Even Larson, who took the case this week, is of two minds.

"She has three kids she shouldn't have had in a country she shouldn't be in," Larson says. But she notes that Ramirez and her husband were saving money for eye surgery for their son, and that they lived here without incident for years. "Now she's in jail with common criminals," Larson adds. "And it's Easter weekend."

What's more vexing: Illegal immigrants who have been charged with drunken driving, including one who killed a Gastonia schoolteacher last year, have not been subject to deportation.

Local authorities have said they are ill-equipped to handle illegal immigration matters.

However, Ramirez's federal warrant issued in 1998 made her more likely to end up in the arms of immigration officials after the traffic stop.

Ramirez is among an increasing number of illegal immigrants facing deportation in recent years. The United States deported a record 202,842 illegal immigrants in 2004, the latest number available through Department of Homeland Security. An estimated 11 million illegal immigrants live in the country.

A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said a national hot line unveiled in the summer of 2003 accounts for the upswing in deportations.

Alvord, who urged Larson to take the case, scrambled Thursday to help file a waiver of removal, a long-shot attempt to stop deportation where length of stay, family ties, threat to life if returned and other factors are considered.

"She's been paying taxes to this government for as long as she's been here," Alvord says of Ramirez. "It seems like it's happening to an American citizen as far as I'm concerned." Through Alvord, Ramirez's husband declined to be interviewed.

Larson worked as an immigration official for more than three years, evaluating immigrant applications. Too often, she says, she saw fellow immigration officials abuse their power, arbitrarily approving admission to the country for some, denying it for others. Soon after she passed the bar in Texas in 2001, she quit her job "to work for the other side."

On Thursday, she waged an uphill battle against a formidable bureaucracy. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to return her repeated calls, which she punched in a keypad on her Treo Smartphone throughout the day.

Her efforts to get an Observer reporter in to see her client at the jail similarly hit snags, as sheriff's deputies sent her from one building, only to be sent back from whence she came.

Throughout the ordeal, Larson gritted her teeth. Smiled. Said "Thank you." The occasional Marlboro Light seemed to take the edge off.

All her legwork was for naught. A deputy finally called up Ramirez's name on his computer and swirled the monitor toward Larson.

"She's not here," the deputy said. ICE had taken her away.

Outside the jail, Larson pulled out her Treo and slipped on her wireless earpiece. "These are the phone calls I hate to make," she said, then dialed Alvord.

"We don't know where she's gone," Larson began. "I'm sorry."

Later, ICE officials would confirm that they removed Ramirez at 5:15 Thursday morning and took her to Etowah County Jail in Gadsden, Ala. "Bed space may be cheaper somewhere else," ICE spokesman Temple Black said about why some detainees are moved. "We're trying to save taxpayer dollars."

It could take years for some in ICE custody to be sent back to their home country, but "generally it does not take very long for citizens from Guatemala," he added.

Mike Drummond: (704) 358-5248.

Great another Illegal caught and some form of action being taken. I dont feel bad for the children to me they carry the same citizenship as thier parents. Check out the 14th admendment. I dont care about the Political do gooders view of it I care about the Litteral meaning. The children are not citizens just because she droped them on OUR soil. send them all packing. Tell the children to thank thier mother and Father for Breaking Our laws. Send them packing. Besides if the children have received some education here than think how much better of they will be back in thier real Home Country.

She had three kids in a country she shouldn't have been in. It's not our fault she did that. SHE decided to bring children into a perilious situation. Is this a wise thing to do? Of course we all know that they 'use' their children for the purpose of gaining a foothold in the US.

I have no sympathy for her.

Should they both get kicked out of the country, their children could become wards of the state.

NO NO NO....send the kids with the parents......they don't belong HERE>

MJ

Originally Posted by MustangJo

Should they both get kicked out of the country, their children could become wards of the state.

NO NO NO....send the kids with the parents......they don't belong HERE>

MJ

Neither does their father who was released! Poppa and three kids are still here and momma will be back a week from next Tuesday.

Build the d**n fence already. THIS is INSANE.

1. What's the name of the Poultry Company this woman worked for, we need to start a BOYCOTT.

2. Both her and her husband should be deported...give him a choice right now...leave with your three children so your family is intact, or we put your children in the custody of the state and DEPORT YOU.

3. Funny how the media can find all these hard luck stories about these poor poor illegals, but never manage to find stories about those of us poor poor American families paying the costs of this illegal alien tsunami.

Pinto Bean