ColorLines: Jamaican American families torn by deportation

http://colorlines.com/article.php?ID=625

Introduction: Torn Apart

By Julianne Ong Hing


From New York to Jamaica, families struggle to stay together.
This story is part of "Torn Apart by Deportation," a series investigating the impacts of deportation on families of color.

October 22, 2009


Before he was president, Barack Obama promised an overhaul of the immigration system in his term’s first year. When other national fights pushed immigration reform to the back burner, it didn’t stop the Obama administration from fine-tuning its agenda on the sidelines.

Workplace raids were scrapped, but neighborhood sweeps have been stepped up. Partnerships between local law enforcement and ICE were renewed. These days, Obama refers to people without papers as “illegal.â€

http://colorlines.com/article.php?ID=623&p=1


Double Punishment

By Seth Wessler




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Families of color are punished twice by immigration and criminal justice systems that don’t provide equal justice.
This story is part of "Torn Apart by Deportation," a series investigating the impacts of deportation on families of color.

October 22, 2009


It was shortly after five on the morning of June 2, 2004, when Calvin James woke up, put on his bathrobe and headed outside to put the trash bins out on the street for the pickup. As the super of his building in Jersey City, New Jersey, James liked taking the trash out early in the morning before the humidity settled in. Besides, the 45-year-old had to be at the first of his two bike messenger jobs in New York City by 7 a.m.He left his girlfriend, Kathy McArdle, asleep in their bed. In the next room was their 6-year-old son, Josh.

As he walked outside, James spotted a black SUV across the road. He thought nothing of it and continued his work. But as he pulled the last trash bin to the curb, four people jumped out of the vehicle, dressed in black clothing marked with the letters “ICE.â€

http://colorlines.com/article.php?ID=624

Home in Name Only

By Julianne Ong Hing




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Deportees struggle to survive in an unfamiliar and unwelcoming place: the country of their birth.
This story is part of "Torn Apart by Deportation," a series investigating the impacts of deportation on families of color.

October 22, 2009


When Calvin James stepped off the plane in Kingston, Jamaica, in 2004, it was late. In the dark, he could not make out any of the landmarks he remembered growing up with before he immigrated to the United States as a young boy.

Weeks later, he’d recognize his old school buildings and back alley playgrounds on those Kingston streets. But that first night, he recognized nothing. He never expected to return to Jamaica this way, on a charter flight with other men who, like him, were being kicked out of the U.S.

Deportees exist in an in-between land; they are not tourists, and yet they cannot go back home to the States. That night, James and the other deportees were taken to the central police station for questioning.

It is standard policy for Jamaican police to detain and question upon arrival the several thousand deportees who come every year—“Do you have family you will be contacting? What address will you be staying at? What are your local relatives’ names?â€

For the family of a deportee remaining here is a choice.

Well cool. There is probably an American citizen who would probably love a job as a bike messenger or being the super of a building.
And there is something else that smells. If he came here at 12, that would put his arrival date around 1976. With the Reagan amnesty of 1986, he would have been a citizen. Unless the federal government has gone completely perquacky, his deportation means that he arrived here after the 1986 amnesty.
And if federal agents had no other reason than to deport him for the arrest, and why would they demand his clothes if they were not looking for other evidence that could be obtained through DNA or other forensic means.
There are too many details missing to sit well in my craw.

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Many of those deported were actually green-card-holders who had been convicted of nonviolent transgressions—shoplifting, drug dealing, public intoxication—and had completed their jail terms decades earlier. They were doing the hard work of readjusting to life outside of jail. They were raising kids and building homes.

We spoke to dozens of people in Jamaica who considered deportation exile. Their stories offer a rebuke to those who defend the criminal justice system as race-neutral and harsh immigration policy as necessary for our national security. They put justice on trial.

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He was a legal resident with a green card. He was arrested and did time, then he got out...did this all happen before the law changed in 1996? If so, why would they be after him now? He isn't an illegal alien. Something is definitely not right with this story.

I would rather they go after and deport illegal aliens, before they deport legal residents.

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Families of color are punished twice by immigration and criminal justice systems that don’t provide equal justice.

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Some truth to that, but I would change the wording of that sentence to "Families of non-hispanics..don't get equal justice"