Thread: Guatemala Protests Arrest of 3 in Florida Over Passports

Guatemala Protests Arrest of 3 in Florida Over Passports
JULIA PRESTON
Published: January 18, 2010

The Guatemalan government has issued a public protest after three Guatemalans were arrested this month by immigration agents at a Federal Express office in Florida, when one of the immigrants went to pick up a package containing his newly issued Guatemalan passport.

Suspecting that the passport was fraudulent, Federal Express officials called Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to alert them when the Guatemalans arrived to collect the package, officials of the immigration agency said. Two of the Guatemalans were illegal immigrants who have been deported, and one is in deportation proceedings.

Guatemalan diplomats said that Federal Express and American officials had examined and seized legitimate passports without notifying them and had improperly disrupted their dealings with Guatemalan citizens living in this country. Felipe Alejos, the Guatemalan consul in Miami, said the events appeared to violate basic diplomatic protocols.

“They seized official documents, and they did not let us know,â€

[quote]Document fraud poses a severe threat to national security and public safety,â€

[quote="uniteasone"][quote]Document fraud poses a severe threat to national security and public safety,â€

Ironically,all three were illegal invaders. Imagine that! Now we have The Guatemalan government protesting because three potential, remittance cash cows have been deported!

Originally Posted by NoBueno

Now we have The Guatemalan government protesting

They saw that it seems to work for Mexico so why not.

Guatemala is one of the trashiest, violent, corrupt medieval cultures I have ever experienced. Their codes for violating immigration is horrible. They shut you up in a tiny rat-shack building hidden deep in Guatemala city Zona 4 slums, and nobody knows about you.

They are the ones who need imigration reform, godamn Mod Edit

“When people in the community perceive that FedEx acted as an agent for immigration, it undermines their belief that they can collect their mail and trust in their government,"

Their government is in Guatemala! This is OUR government, dufus, designed to protect the country from illegals (sort of...)

Welcome to ALIPAC ORKSLAYER999

OK, check this out...I lived in Guatemala 15 yrs, and near the end I applied for legal citizenship, but after paying all that money...they told me..

"Well, the USA is giving Guatemalans a hard time in the immigration, so we are not granting visas at this time."

Even the American embassy was warning us in early 2006.

They are demanding a double standard (to treat illegals legally), when they won't even treat legals legally. Get it?!!

Posted on Tuesday, 01.19.10
Guatemala angry over seized passports, detentions

By AP Hispanic Affairs Writer


MIAMI -- The Guatemalan government claims U.S. immigration officials improperly seized Guatemalan passports issued to its citizens in the U.S. and detained three people who went to a Florida FedEx store to pick them up.

FedEx employees at a Palm Beach County store contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents Jan. 6 after they received about 40 packages, most of them undeliverable, from a Louisiana-based company. The employees, who had opened at least one of the envelopes, said the packages appeared to contain Guatemalan passports that could have been fraudulent.

The passports were official. But ICE officials took the passports and waited till Jan. 11 to contact the Guatemalan government, returning the documents after Guatemalan Consul General in Miami, Felipe Alejos Lorenzana, and an attorney complained.

Meanwhile, on Jan. 6, FedEx employees also contacted two of the men whose names were listed on the packages. When the men came to pick up their documents, they were detained by ICE officials and deported because they were in the U.S. illegally. A woman who accompanied the men and was waiting outside for them in a van with her 2-year-old son was also detained and now faces deportation proceedings.

"They didn't follow any of the right diplomatic proceedings to identify whether (the documents) were fraudulent or not," Alejos said Thursday. He said the consulate was first contacted about the incident by a local community group. He now worries Guatemalans won't renew their passports for fear of being detained by ICE.

ICE officials did not explain the delay in contacting the Guatemalan government.

Agency spokeswoman Nicole Navas said in a statement that ICE held onto the passports: "pending verification that the shipper was a contractor with the Guatemalan government in producing passports and to verify the passports were legitimate."

She said document fraud poses a severe threat to national security and public safety because it "may enable terrorists, criminals, and illegal aliens to gain entry to and remain in the United States."

Alejos said the company that sent the documents has contracted with the Guatemalan government for more than eight years, providing thousands of passports each month to Guatemalans in the U.S. He said the consulate has canceled all contracts with FedEx.

FedEx officials said Tuesday that they had repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to reach the company that sent the passports before opening the undeliverable packages. FedEx said some individuals had been contacted before the Jan. 6 incident and had successfully picked up their passports.


http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida ... 34269.html