Thread: Illegal aliens deported from Toledo

Illegal immigrants deported from Toledo

Practice has drawn criticism from Port Authority board member

By LAUREN LINDSTROM | BLADE STAFF WRITER
Published on June 23, 2016 | Updated 12:55 a. m.

• FLOC’s Baldemar Velasquez said he was surprised to find out that flights deporting illegal immigrants are leaving from Toledo Express Airport.
  
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Nearly every Tuesday a flight is chartered out of Toledo Express Airport, taking immigration deportees out of Ohio and on toward their countries of origin.

The practice has drawn criticism from Baldemar Velasquez, Farm Labor Organizing Committee president and Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority board member.

He levied his criticism in a written statement to Port Authority board members ahead of today’s board meeting, which he could not attend because of FLOC negotiations out of state.

Recent cases of deported individuals living in Ohio alerted Mr. Velasquez to the practice.

“I had no idea this was going on right in our own backyard,” he said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Khaalid Walls said deportation flights happen daily from several locations around the country, including Toledo.




“Removal flights originating at the Toledo airport have occurred for more than a decade and predominantly contain individuals who have been encountered in Michigan and Ohio,” he said in a written statement. “ICE Air Operations (IAO) supports this mission by providing air transportation services to [ICE Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations] 24 field offices, to facilitate the movement of aliens within the United States and also the removal of aliens to destinations worldwide.”

He declined to confirm which day of the week the Toledo flights occur, but said they are typically on a weekly basis. Further inquiries were directed to be made through a written public records request.

Steve Arnold, director of airport operations for Toledo Express, said the airport, which receives federal funding, cannot deny clearance for federally-ordered flights.

The deportation flights happen most Tuesdays at a variety of scheduled times, he said.

They are usually chartered flights most commonly headed to Brownsville, Texas, Laredo, Texas, or Alexandria, La., which are all near ICE detention centers. From there, passengers continue their removal process from the United States.

Mr. Arnold said it was his understanding that different charter services are used for deporting the illegal immigrants, but he could not name them.

The planes used in Toledo are similar to an MD-80 aircraft and seat about 130 passengers, Mr. Arnold said. The number of passengers on the Toledo flights varies.

“I’ve seen where they put on a handful [of people] and I’ve seen where they bring buses in,” he said. He said he’s been told detainees have come from Gary, Ind., Buffalo, N.Y., and Detroit, as well as from around Ohio.

He said the immigrants are not being loaded at the passenger terminal or at a charter service location. He said they are being driven on a bus out to the tarmac, where they are then loaded onto the airplanes.


Steve Arnold, director of airport operations for Toledo Express Airport, said the planes used in Toledo are similar to an MD-80 aircraft, above, and seat about 130 passengers. He said the number of passengers on the Toledo flights varies.
ASSOCIATED PRESS

The planes similar to the MD-80 model being used for this purpose are the biggest aircraft now flying out of Toledo Express.

Mr. Velasquez said he was particularly concerned about the case of Marcos Pinon-Hernandez, whose deportation orders were upheld earlier this year and who was expected to be deported this week.

The Madison, Ohio, resident had a 2011 arrest for driving under the influence but was not convicted. Mr. Velasquez said his deportation order is a misapplication of the government’s discretion policy for deportation.

Mr. Velasquez said cases like that of Mr. Pinon-Hernandez, who has four American-born children including one with special needs, wrongly separate families by deporting people who are providing financially and emotionally for others.

“One hundred years in the future we’re going to look back at this as a tragic episode in American history,” he said. He said he plans to request additional conversations with ICE officers to talk about deportation discretion policies.

Messages left with ICE deportation officers were insufficient to confirm Mr. Pinon-Hernandez was deported on Tuesday.

Mr. Velasquez said in his message to Port Authority board members that he wanted to put his objections to the flights on the record.

“I would like, for the record, state my opposition to these flights and if there was a legal way to stop them I would vote for it until there is something that resembles ‘due process’ for many of the deportees,” he wrote. “I would at least encourage our Port Authority to register our moral objection to the ICE office in Detroit for lack of procedural oversight of the deportation orders that lead to the unwarranted separation of families.”

Board Chairman Jim Tuschman said the Port Authority doesn’t have the jurisdiction to take up the issue.

“I’m sure there is concern on his part,” he said of Mr. Velasquez. “But there isn’t anything the Port Authority can do or should do; it’s a federal matter.

Our job is to stay true to our mission, goals, and objectives, and interfering with the federal government’s immigration policy is not one of them.”

http://www.toledoblade.com/local/201...om-Toledo.html

We don't need to separate the families......deport the kids with the parents!!!!!

Deport families intact, no child left behind.

Load up trains and transport them that way. Cheaper and you can fit more of them in there.