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  1. #1
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Undocumented immigrant's arrest closes door on deferred action

    Undocumented immigrant's arrest closes door on deferred action

    Daniel González,
    The Republic | azcentral.com
    April 6, 2014


    (Photo: Nick Oza/The Republic)


    The young woman jams her fist into the palm of her hand.

    One by one she cracks her knuckles. First one hand. Then the other. The noise sounds like frozen carrots breaking.

    Crack. Crack. Crack.

    Twenty-two-year-old Noemi Romero, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, cracks her knuckles whenever she gets nervous, a habit she's had since childhood. Her hands sweat and she cracks away.

    She cracked them when Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputies raided an Asian supermarket in Maryvale last year while she was working there as a cashier.

    She cracked them when deputies sent her to jail for illegally using her mother's Social Security number to work.

    She cracked them when she was then turned over to immigration authorities for possible deportation to Mexico, a country she hasn't seen since she was a toddler.

    And she is cracking them now, sitting in her living room, recalling the entire yearlong saga. It started with a desire to earn $465 to apply for President Barack Obama's deferred-action program. It turned into a felony conviction, a conviction that has ruined her chance at living and working legally in the U.S., perhaps permanently.

    Crack. Crack. Crack.

    Noemi doesn't get much sympathy from Arpaio. He says he feels sorry for undocumented immigrants brought to this country illegally as children. But Noemi should have known better, having grown up in the U.S.

    "This young lady knows you would never borrow your mother's driver's license to drive. She has enough sense not to borrow the mother's Social Security number to get a job," Arpaio said. "She knew she was violating the law, and it's my job to enforce the law."

    Still, Noemi can't understand why the penalty is so harsh, so final.

    Growing up

    Noemi is originally from Vil*lahermosa, the capital of Tabasco, in southern Mexico. Her parents brought her to the U.S. illegally when she was 3, along with her younger brother, Jesus, 20, who was 1 at the time.

    Noemi grew up speaking Spanish at home in Glendale but speaks English perfectly. Noemi thought she was like every other American kid until she turned 16 and friends started to drive. She asked them how they got their permits.

    "They told me I needed a 'social,' " Noemi recalled. "I said, 'What's that?' "
    Noemi asked her parents.

    They informed her that she didn't have a Social Security number because she wasn't born in the U.S. and that she didn't have legal status, either.
    She also had no way to get legal status because she was brought to the U.S. illegally and she didn't have any eligible relatives who could petition for her.

    In 2010, she graduated from Ronald C. Bauer Medical Arts School. The Phoenix charter school prepares students for careers in health care. Noemi wanted to study nursing or maybe cosmetology after high school.
    After graduation, Noemi watched her friends move on with their lives. Some got jobs. Others went to college.

    Not her. Without a Social Security number, she couldn't work legally. She also couldn't afford college because Arizona bars undocumented students from paying in-state tuition, and undocumented students are not eligible for financial aid.

    Noemi mostly stayed home helping her mom. Her mom earns money baby-sitting the children of working parents during the day and cleaning other people's houses at night.

    Noemi yearned for something better.

    A chance at legal status

    On June 15, 2012, President Obama stood in the Rose Garden at the White House to address a new policy aimed at immigrants brought to this country illegally as children. They are sometimes called "dreamers," the president said.

    "These are young people who study in our schools, they play in our neighborhoods, they're friends with our kids, they pledge allegiance to our flag," Obama said. "They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper."

    The president's description fit Noemi.

    The program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, allows dreamers with clean records to ask for temporary protection from deportation. Those approved receive renewable, two-year work permits.

    Noemi's mother, Maria Gomez, 39, heard about the program a few weeks later watching Spanish news. The first day to apply was coming up on Aug. 15, 2012.

    Noemi met all of the requirements: Younger than 31. Brought to the U.S. before the age of 16. High-school graduate. No criminal record.

    "I think I'm eligible," she remembers telling her mom.

    She was, as were up to 1.7 million other young people across the country brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

    But there was a catch. She needed $465 to pay for the application fee.
    Borrowing documents

    Noemi didn't have a job. And at the time, her dad, Noe Romero, 40, the breadwinner of the family, didn't have steady work. Also an undocumented immigrant, he mounts tires for a living. Noemi's parents didn't have enough money for food and rent, let alone helping Noemi pay for the $465 application fee.

    Similar situations have made it hard for many dreamers to apply for DACA.

    Noemi tried getting a job without a Social Security number.

    She filled out at least 15 applications at restaurants and stores around her home near 67th Avenue and Bethany Home Road.

    The applications asked for her Social Security number. Noemi left the spot blank. But the managers always asked, "Why didn't you fill this out?"

    "I would just look at them and not say anything," Noemi said.
    The managers would tell Noemi they'd get back to her.

    They never did.

    Part of the reason Noemi was having a tough time getting a job is a 2008 state law that sanctions employers that "knowingly" or "intentionally" hire unauthorized workers. The law also requires employers to use a federal online system, E-Verify, to check whether any new employees are authorized to work.

    Then one day in late October 2012, a friend called Noemi on her cellphone.

    The friend knew about an opening at Lam's Supermarket on Indian School Road and 67th Avenue. A cashier was about to quit. She should apply, the friend said.

    Noemi told her she didn't have any legal work documents.

    "She told me it didn't matter," Noemi recalled. "If I could just borrow documents from someone that would be fine."

    Noemi knew someone with documents she could borrow. Her mother.

    Saving for application

    Maria Gomez is in the country illegally. But she has a valid Social Security number and a federal work permit because for the past four years she has been fighting a deportation case against her in U.S. immigration court.

    The government sometimes issues work permits to undocumented immigrants until their deportation cases are legally resolved, which can take years. Gomez is fighting to have the case thrown out because she has lived in the U.S. for more than 10 years and has another daughter, Cynthia, 14, who was born in the U.S., making her a citizen.

    Noemi picked up a job application at Lam's the same day her friend called. Instead of her own information, she filled out the application using her mother's name and Social Security number.

    Lam's Supermarket is in a rundown strip mall. The store, a mile from Noemi's home, specializes in Asian food products and exotic whole fish displayed in beds of ice in back.

    Noemi turned in her job application the next day. She was hired on the spot.

    After two weeks of training, Noemi started working as a cashier three days a week. Her usual hours were 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. She started at $7.65 an hour.

    Noemi opened a bank account right away. But it took more than two months to save the money she needed. She first had to help her parents pay for food and rent.

    Noemi got paid Wednesdays. On Jan. 16, 2013, Noemi's paycheck totaled about $200. She planned to deposit the entire amount in her bank account that Friday, her day off. She had finally saved enough money for the $465 deferred-action application fee. She planned to apply the next week.

    She never got the chance.

    Sheriff's deputies arrive

    The next day, Thursday, Jan. 17, Noemi was standing behind one of the cash registers ringing up customers. She was about to take her lunch break when she noticed two or three men enter the store through the automatic glass doors.

    The men were wearing regular clothes. But something about them told Noemi they were not customers.

    The men walked down the grocery aisles pretending to be shoppers.

    Then Noemi saw one ask for the manager at the service counter. He was holding papers. Noemi saw him pull out a badge.

    More deputies arrived, dressed in uniform. Noemi recalls seeing at least two dozen deputies stream through the front door. She knew right away what was happening. The deputies were raiding the supermarket. Noemi had seen video of other raids on the news many times before.

    In a panic, Noemi grabbed her cellphone from her pocket and texted her mom.

    "Acaban de llegar los sheriffs aqui."

    The sheriffs just arrived.

    Lam's investigation

    Eleven months earlier, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office "criminal employment squad" opened an investigation into Lam's Supermarket after receiving a tip from a former employee, according to court records.

    The former employee told investigators that workers at the store were using Social Security numbers belonging to other people to get jobs.

    Investigators started digging into the claims. They examined Wage and Earning Reports on file at the state Department of Economic Security.

    They found various discrepancies after cross-referencing the names and Social Security numbers of workers employed at Lam's using law-enforcement data bases, according to court records.

    "The discrepancies consisted of multiple names, different addresses, no records and the listed names not matching the SSN (Social Security number)," according to court records.

    Sheriff's investigators then asked the Social Security Administration to run a check. They found 21 names that came up as suspicious, according to court records. One was Maria Gomez, the name Noemi was using to work at Lam's.

    After obtaining a search warrant, sheriff's deputies decided to raid Lam's at 1 p.m. Jan. 17, 2013. Deputies had determined there would be more employees than customers inside the store at that time. It was the 70th raid since Sheriff Arpaio began raiding businesses and arresting workers in 2008. To date, 776 workers have been arrested in 79 raids.

    "We don't go into these workplaces because we're going after illegal immigrants," Arpaio said. "We go into the workplaces for people with fake IDs, which is a big problem. ... This is serious, stealing Social Security numbers. Very important."

    'I was just working'

    During the raid, sheriff's deputies fanned out throughout the store, rounding up workers. They found nine of the 21 they were looking for.

    Deputies lined up Noemi and the other workers at the front of the store. There were two cashiers, a woman from produce and six workers from the fish and meat counters, Noemi said.

    Noemi remembers being handcuffed with a pair of pink handcuffs, a trademark of the sheriff's, and told to have a seat. She remembers sitting there for nearly two hours wondering why she was being arrested.
    "I kept crying," Noemi recalled. "It wasn't fair what they were doing to me. I was like, 'Why am I getting arrested?' I was just working. I wasn't doing anything bad."

    The deputies finally told the workers to get up. Noemi remembers being walked in handcuffs to a sheriff's van waiting outside.

    She saw lots of television cameras. She also saw her mom standing behind some yellow police tape yelling her nickname, Mimi.

    "Mimi," her mother yelled. "No firmas nada."

    Mimi. Don't sign anything.

    Facing serious charges

    During their search, deputies found an employee file at Lam's Supermarket for Maria Gomez, according to court records. The file contained photocopies of a Social Security card and other documents with the name Maria Gomez.

    During an interview with sheriff's deputies, Noemi admitted working under her mom's information, according to court records.

    Noemi gives a different account. She believes she was swept up in the raid by accident. A deputy at the jail told her she was not one of the 21 workers they were looking for, she says. The deputy wanted to let her go when another deputy found a pay stub in her purse with her mother's name on it. The name on the pay stub didn't match her school ID, which she says she had originally shown them.

    She said the deputy got angry when he found the pay stub and yelled at her.

    "He said, 'Why are you lying to us?' " Noemi recalled. "He started shaking the pay stub in my face. 'Why are you working with this? You are working under someone else's name. Do you think I'm stupid? I know what you are doing.' "

    In the end, deputies charged her with forgery, identity theft and aggravated identity theft, all serious felonies.

    No supervisors or managers at Lam's have been charged as a result of the raid.

    But in October, in an unrelated case, the co-owners of Lam's Seafood Market, which has the same address, Dat Tan "Tom" Lam of Goodyear and Precious Progress "Robert" Lam of Litchfield Park, each pleaded guilty to conspiracy counts in federal court.

    The two brothers were accused of attempting to evade payroll and other taxes by concealing sales records, filing false payroll-tax returns, paying employees in cash and failing to file personal and business tax returns in 2003, 2004 and 2005.

    The brothers were sentenced Tuesday. They faced probation, home confinement except to work, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution and penalties, but no prison time, according to court records.
    Under the plea agreement, however, they face no prison time.
    60 days in jail

    Noemi spent the next 60 days behind bars at Estrella Jail waiting for her court date. Although she hadn't been charged with a violent crime, Noemi was not eligible to be released on bond while her court date was pending. Arizona has a law that denies bond to immigrants in the country illegally who are charged with serious felonies.

    In jail, Noemi wore a black-and-white-striped prison uniform issued to all inmates. She shared a large dorm room with more than 100 other women.

    "There were drug addicts and crazy people," Noemi said.

    She slept in a bunk bed and ate plates of food the jail officers called "slop."

    "Sometimes there were little worms in there. It just smelled horrible," Noemi said.

    The other inmates often asked her, "Why are you in here?"

    They seemed shocked when Noemi told them.

    "They couldn't understand why they would put you in there for trying to work," Noemi said.

    The consequences

    On March 18, 2013, Noemi pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of criminal impersonation, a Class 6 felony, the lowest level. Her defense lawyer, James Tinker, told Noemi that was the best deal she could get.On her plea agreement, Noemi initialed a paragraph saying she understood that pleading guilty may have immigration consequences, among them being deported, and possibly being barred from ever getting legal status or citizenship.

    Tinker also said it's his standard practice to review all possible immigration consequences, including deferred action, with his clients before they agree to plead guilty. Still, Noemi said she didn't realize that pleading guilty to a felony would ruin her chances to apply for deferred action.

    Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter C. Reinstein sentenced Noemi to 60 days in jail and six months probation. She was given credit for the 60 days she had spent in jail.

    Next, Noemi was turned over to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and placed in deportation proceedings. She spent five more weeks in a detention center in Eloy while her case was pending.

    While Noemi was in detention, a Phoenix advocacy group, Puente Arizona, launched an online campaign demanding that ICE stop trying to deport her.

    On April 25, 2013, Noemi had a hearing in front of an immigration judge in Eloy. She was sure she was going to be deported to Mexico. Her parents worried something bad could happen to her at the border, where criminals often prey on deportees. Just in case, they arranged for a family friend who is a U.S. citizen to drive across the border to Nogales and stay with Noemi at a hotel.

    The deportation hearing lasted a couple of minutes. Afterward, a detention officer escorted Noemi to her cell.

    Do you understand what happened? the officer asked. Her case was dismissed. But Noemi didn't know what that meant.

    It means, you are going home, the officer told her.
    Noemi got scared.
    "To Mexico?" she asked.

    No, the officer told her. Home. Call your family.

    Not giving up on dream

    Recalling that moment a year later, Noemi pauses. The silence in the room is broken by the sound of Noemi cracking her knuckles. It is the sound of Noemi's dreams being broken.

    Crack. Crack. Crack.

    If she hadn't been convicted, Noemi believes she would have been approved for the deferred-action program by now. She would have her work permit. She would be back in school.

    Instead, Noemi still stays home helping her mom baby-sit.

    Noemi said she understands she broke the law. But she doesn't regret borrowing her mother's Social Security number. She was just trying to earn money for the application fee.

    "I felt like that was the only way," she said.

    But she would not tell other young undocumented immigrants to do the same thing.

    "What happened to me might happen to you," she said.

    Noemi faces an uncertain future. But nearly being deported has taught her to look on the bright side. She also has not given up hope that one day she will be able to work legally in the U.S. and go back to school.
    "I'm just not sure how it will happen," she said.

    Arizona Republic reporter Daniel González conducted multiple interviews with Noemi Romero in person and by phone. He also conducted several interviews with her mother, Maria Gomez. He verified information about Romero's criminal case through court records. He verified information about her deportation case with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and with documents provided by Romero.

    Group raises funds to help dreamers pay application fee
    A Phoenix organization has a fund to help undocumented immigrants afford the $465 application fee to apply for deferred action.
    The fund, called "Don't Leave Them Behind," is operated by Chicanos Por La Causa. It has already helped 132 so-called dreamers since December 2012 and handed out more than $61,380 in scholarships, said Arjelia Gomez, the chief financial officer. The money has come from community donations, including one person who donated $30,000, she said.
    The goal is to hand out $100,000 to help 215 people, Gomez said.
    People interested in donating to the fund can visit the CPLC website, www.cplc.org/get-involved/categorydonate.aspx. People interested in donating or applying for funds can call Gomez directly at 602-257-0700.
    Own the Dream, a national non-profit advocacy group that helps undocumented immigrants apply for deferred action, publishes a list of organizations that offer financial aid:

    www.weownthedream.org/links.

    http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/.../?sf24712207=1

    Crocodile tears..... Her mother was just a guilty for giving her the documents and she had already been ordered deported once.



  2. #2
    Senior Member Kiara's Avatar
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    "These are young people who study in our schools, they play in our neighborhoods, they're friends with our kids, they pledge allegiance to our flag," Obama said. "They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper."
    So then they are NOT Americans and for her to get away with deportation is wrong.

  3. #3
    Senior Member Kiara's Avatar
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    The two brothers were accused of attempting to evade payroll and other taxes by concealing sales records, filing false payroll-tax returns, paying employees in cash and failing to file personal and business tax returns in 2003, 2004 and 2005.

    The brothers were sentenced Tuesday. They faced probation, home confinement except to work, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution and penalties, but no prison time, according to court records.
    Under the plea agreement, however, they face no prison time.
    60 days in jail
    They got away easy. There should be higher penalties for people like that!

  4. #4
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    She slept in a bunk bed and ate plates of food the jail officers called "slop."

    "Sometimes there were little worms in there. It just smelled horrible," Noemi said.
    I am really having a hard time believing this. Do believe Noemi is a liar. Maybe they fed her spanish rice and she called it worms. I know we used to do that when they fed us spanish rice for hot lunch at school.

    Also I'm trying to figure out why mom has a social and Noemi doesn't and am wondering if moms social is fake.

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