Thread: FL SOB:Deportations rise in Fla., leaving families torn

Deportations rise in Fla., leaving families torn
Immigrants' kids, lives left behind

By JANINE ZEITLIN • jzeitlin@news-press.com • March 1, 2009

http://www.news-press.com/article/20090 ... 10408/1075

The cozy, south Fort Myers home has the signatures of familial bliss.
A silver-framed wedding photo in the entry of a beaming Paul Grimaldi and Teresa Figueredo.

A swing set in the back.

And a 3-year-old, Anna, demanding the attention of her doting father.

What's missing in this picture is Anna's mother.

Around 6 a.m., in mid-November, immigration agents pounded on the door and took a pregnant Figueredo from the home.

A month later, she was deported to Argentina. Married since June 2005, the couple were in the process of adjusting Teresa's immigration status.

"I'm just dumbfounded," said Paul Grimaldi, 42, a U.S.-born citizen. "I can't stand the fact they'd actually do something to tear apart a family."

Immigrants and their advocates say authorities have stepped up enforcement in recent months - tracking down immigrants with no criminal records through traffic stops or at their homes to deport them.

A grandfather said Collier County authorities detained his Guatemalan wife, who has no criminal record with the agency, during a Thursday visit arranged by a child welfare worker to see their grandsons. Victor Arriaga said his wife, Elida, may be deported in days.

"It has increased considerably since November of last year," said Ricardo Skerrett, a Fort Myers immigration attorney. "Either they're doing raids or they get picked up because of traffic violations."

Indeed, fiscal year 2008 broke records for deportations in Florida, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Miami office records show it shipped off almost 13,000 illegal immigrants, almost triple the 4,500 sent away in 2001.

ICE officials have maintained criminal offenders are top targets.
Ivan Ortiz-Delgado, an ICE spokesman, said the agency focuses most of its attention on dangerous criminals but will not ignore others.

"While our priorities focus on criminal and fugitive aliens, ICE will not turn a blind eye to enforcing our nation's immigration laws," he said in an e-mail.

A February Migration Policy Institute report stated a program designed to deport threatening fugitives has instead focused on unauthorized immigrants without criminal records.

Ortiz-Delgado takes issue with the report, stating it "suggests that law enforcement should not arrest any criminal fugitive who does not have a prior criminal conviction, even though they have ignored a judge's order to leave the country."

Meanwhile, immigrants live in fear of their families being snapped apart, and advocates are planning events to call for an end to deportations. One is planned for May in Fort Myers. A rally to end deportations to Haiti was set for Saturday in Pompano Beach.

Nationwide increase

The spike in deportations is not unique to Florida. ICE removed about 350,000 in its latest fiscal year, a 20 percent jump from 2007.
The migration report found 73 percent of the almost 97,000 picked up by ICE's fugitive operations teams were unauthorized immigrants with no criminal records.

Although ICE numbers aren't available by county, the agency and the Collier County Sheriff's Office, which has a federally funded unit with immigration enforcement powers, have been active in Lee County.

In the past six months, authorities conducted two publicized sweeps - rounding up 25 people in an August operation targeting gang members and more than 60 others a month before.

Ortiz-Delgado, an ICE spokesman, said the agency is trying to be proactive.

John Sullivan, head of the Cape Coral Minutemen, sympathized with families being split through enforcement while pointing out individuals made the choice to emigrate illegally.

"That's their choice," he said. "If they want the families to stay together, let them go somewhere else."

More immigrants being deported frees up jobs for workers here legally and American citizens slogging through this tough economy, he said.

"If we take them out of the picture," Sullivan said, "it's going to put more Americans to work."

Families broken

Those who work with undocumented immigrants in Southwest Florida say people have been leaving voluntarily. Haitians have been hit hard, some say.

"Everybody's a little scared," said Pierrette Faustin, program director of the Haitian Center of Catholic Charities in Fort Myers. "Life is getting a little harder now."

A Haitian diplomat has refused to issue documents needed to remove most deportees until there's a review of immigration policies. Officials said the country can't handle them as they try to cope with last year's tropical storms and food riots.

"I don't have any problems deporting the criminals, but there are Haitians who are not criminals who have been deported and have left behind their children," said Jude Joseph, owner of the Haitian radio station Occidentale in Fort Myers. "How do you raise children without their parents?"

Immigration policies are confounding to Grimaldi as he's learned becoming legal can often be a drawn-out ordeal.

"It's just so screwed up," he said. "There's so much information missing and paperwork that needs to be sent to different entities."

Grimaldi, a head chef, said he and his wife, 31, have run through $5,000 in legal bills and three lawyers to resolve her status.

Here's what happened in her case, according to their former lawyer Ed Abramson:

Figueredo was denied political asylum and ordered deported before the marriage petition was approved in 2006.

"It's not a fraudulent marriage," Abramson said. "I've been doing this for 21 years, and in my experience, in a fraudulent marriage, they definitely don't procreate."

Although the petition was accepted, Figueredo's status was not changed to legal. In the two years since, she had not heard from immigration, the lawyer said.

Figueredo said the couple believed the paperwork was being worked out with their lawyers.

"I thought we were doing things right, but one day they come and knock on your door and take you away from your family. ... We have pending paperwork but nobody cares," she said by phone from Buenos Aires. "Every day is harder."

The couple is seeking help from an Immokalee-based organization, Harvest for Humanity.

Founder and president Richard Nogaj said the breaking up of families because of enforcement is why reform is needed.

"We need to look at this in humane terms," he said. "These are people, and it isn't what we stand for as a country."

Fighting to stay

Monica Laude, an attorney at Florida Equal Justice Center, has noted an upswing of family or friends of people detained without criminal records seeking help.

"It's a scary thing especially for a woman at home with children," she said.
A pregnant Marta Silva devolved into sobs Wednesday when she retold the story of how her fiance, Jose Rodriguez, was detained. The couple has a 3-year-old daughter.

The 29-year-old from Mexico was in a van on Interstate 75 heading to a roofing job when it was stopped by authorities in early January. Rodriguez came into the country illegally in 1998.

The driver had a valid license but four, including Rodriguez, did not have proper documents, he said.

He was later shipped to a Texas detention center, where Skerrett was able to argue for his release on bail. Rodriguez returned to the couple's Lehigh Acres home a day or so before Valentine's Day.

"You feel awful, like you're trash just because you don't have a simple piece of paper," he said. "The criminals should be sent away ... but I just want to work."

Skerrett said his client is eligible for relief because he's been in the country more than 10 years, has a daughter here and no criminal convictions.

He estimated it could take more than a year to resolve his status. Silva, 31, a legal resident, doesn't understand why officials have become stricter with those who don't pose a criminal threat.

"In this country, we're all supposed to be the same, Hispanic or not," she said. "We're all human beings."

Grimaldi speaks or texts almost daily. He fends off his daughter's inquiries with: "Mommy's working in Argentina."

Papers cover his table, including an ultrasound from Argentina of their baby on the way.

"I'm sure there's bad people that need to be taken care of but she doesn't drink or do drugs, she's church-going and she learned to speak English," he said. "I just don't get it. We're all immigrants. Let's work this out."

101 Comments

"You feel awful, like you're trash just because you don't have a simple piece of paper," he said. "The criminals should be sent away ... but I just want to work."

I honestly don't care if you feel like trash. You, dipso, need that simple piece of paper and you are trash taking a job away from someone in this country legally and American citizens who are supposed to earn the money to pay for all your social services.

Ortiz-Delgado takes issue with the report, stating it "suggests that law enforcement should not arrest any criminal fugitive who does not have a prior criminal conviction, even though they have ignored a judge's order to leave the country."

Well...DUH!!!!!!!!!!
You were told to leave BEFORE you got married and BEFORE you had kids....and now it is OUR fault????????NOT!!!!!!!!!!!

They always make it to sound like poor baby me don't they.

They need to be deported and our 'ANCHOR BABY" laws needs to changed.

I think that illegal familes should be unified...............in Mexico and/or their country of birth.

Originally Posted by vortex

"You feel awful, like you're trash just because you don't have a simple piece of paper," he said. "The criminals should be sent away ... but I just want to work."

I honestly don't care if you feel like trash. You, dipso, need that simple piece of paper and you are trash taking a job away from someone in this country legally and American citizens who are supposed to earn the money to pay for all your social services.

It should be easy enough to prove if he has been paying taxes on the money he earned while he was working. He took a job that an American would have done and paid taxes on. Maybe someone who had been laid off and was in danger of losing his/her house. The economy is terrible right now, and Americans NEED his job, and the jobs of the other 3 in the van with him who didn't have "a simple piece of paper". He is a criminal and he has no remorse, meaning he will have no problem coming back if he's deported. These people need to be made to understand that they did commit a crime or multiple crimes (stolen or made up SSNs, not paying their fair share of taxes, welfare fraud - getting welfare for their anchor babies while not reporting their income, just claiming mom doesn't know who/where the father is so they can get more in food stamps and qualify for medical, etc) so they maybe think twice before just coming back here. if both parents are illegal, deport the kids with them, whether they are anchor baby "Americans" or here illegally, by telling the parents it is their responsibility to care for their children, and if they don't take them, the children will be considered abandoned, and put up for adoption. Illegals really do need to be taught that they are breaking the law. I'm tired of them always saying they are law abiding, and did nothing wrong. Other criminals get harsher sentences if they don't/can't accept responsibility for their actions.

These people knew they were risking getting caught and being separated from their children. This makes them guilty of reckless child endangerment as well. The argument that the illegals shouldn't be deported sounds a lot like the old story of the guy who shot his parents and then threw himself on the mercy of the court because he was an orphan.

I love this analogy used here and it's the perfect reply to those who cry about our immigration laws separating families! This is a situation they created for themselves in which our laws have absolutely no culpability whatsoever!

Anchor baby citizenship is what is keeping the illegals here in spite of the bad economy. The illegal parents collect benefits for these children and are able to stay afloat without working a day. Meanwhile, American citizens are declaring bankruptcy due to medical bills they can't pay. Stopping automatic citizenship for these kids is imperative!

Immigrants and their advocates say authorities have stepped up enforcement in recent months - tracking down immigrants with no criminal records through traffic stops or at their homes to deport them.

Its NOT "immigrants" STUPID, its ILLEGAL ALIENS that are being tracked down and deported. ITS THE LAW, AND AMERICANS WANT THE LAW ENFORCED.