Thread: ICE's arrest punitive and mean-spirited

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Posted on Thu, May. 25, 2006



ICE's arrest punitive and mean-spirited
OUR OPINION: RELEASE INNOCENT MAN FROM IMMIGRATION PRISON



By all rights, Orlando Bosquete should be a free man. He served more than 12 years for a crime he didn't commit. On Tuesday, he was freed after being exonerated by DNA evidence. Then, against all reason, Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities jailed him again. Only minutes after his release, ICE put Mr. Bosquete in handcuffs and swept him off to another cell at the Krome prison.

The worst injustice

Here is a man who was a victim of the worst kind of injustice. For ICE to lock him up after he had been imprisoned so long only adds insult to the injury Mr. Bosquete had already suffered. Judge Richard Payne, who freed Mr. Bosquete, was absolutely right. ''No words. . . will do justice for the penalty you had to pay,'' he said.

ICE's abundance of caution might be understandable if Mr. Bosquete was in any way a danger to the community. That's not the case here. For the first time in more than 20 years, Mr. Bosquete was about to taste real freedom. He was going to live with a nephew who is a Monroe County corrections officer. He had a job offer from a landscaping company. His large, extended family awaited his release. This is not the profile of a flight risk.

Mr. Bosquete's lawyers from the Innocence Project told all this to ICE officials. The lawyers even suggested that ICE could give him an ankle monitor if they were concerned. The case cried out for humanitarian parole, which ICE can grant. But ICE chose to act in a punitive, mean-spirited way.

An ICE spokeswoman said yesterday that Mr. Bosquete violated immigration laws and must appear before an immigration judge. One violation was based on a burglary conviction; the other for not properly adjusting his status. Yet Mr. Bosquete arrived via the Mariel boatlift in 1980; Mariel refugees weren't allowed to adjust their status for years. He wouldn't have been able to do so because he was arrested in 1982 for the crime he didn't commit. In 1983, Mr. Bosquete was wrongly convicted of a sexual battery and sentenced to 55 years in prison. From the beginning he protested his innocence. The Innocence Project took his case and won his release.

Wrongful conviction

During his time in prison, however, Mr. Bosquete escaped twice, once for 10 years. While an escapee, he pleaded guilty to some petty crimes, sometimes under aliases he had assumed. He even served time for some crimes that had been committed by the people whose identity he claimed. His lawyers argue that everything on his record since he was arrested in 1982 is a direct result of the wrongful conviction.

Palm Beach County state prosecutors sensibly dropped charges related to the lengthy escape. Mr. Bosquete shouldn't have to serve more time. ICE should release him immediately.






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Illegal is Illegal , I don't care if you just did 80 years in the clink...

ICE should release him immediately.

In spite of their recent behavior, ICE is to enforce the law. That's their job. Mr. Bosquette's case will be adjudicated by a judge. That's what judges do. Next thing you know we'll be having car window trials like Mexico.

Even if he was found innnocent via DNA for one crime, this guy is no angel and obviously uses aliases and has his own criminal history. We do not want his kind in this country and he is here illegally anyway. Deport him.

Lock him up.But for him being here illegally ,he'd not be in this mess in the first place.
I may sound cold, but I have little to no sympathy what so ever,,,for these law breakers!!