Thread: Deportation net snags legal immigrants

Deportation net snags legal immigrants
Amid tighter rules, residents with old, minor offenses are sent away

By KARIN BRULLIARD, Washington Post
First published: Sunday, August 3, 2008

WASHINGTON -- It was a very stupid thing to do, Kathryn Ingleson says now. She was a teenage cashier, and she used customers' credit card numbers to buy $339.07 worth of items, including a fake Christmas tree. She pleaded guilty, got probation and pretty much forgot about it.

Until, that is, she took a trip abroad six years later and federal authorities decided the crimes made her deportable. Now the British citizen, who has lived in Newport News, Va., as a lawful permanent resident since she was 7, has been ordered to leave the United States this month.

"It's just like a nightmare, really," said Ingleson, 31, who has worked at a packaging company for a decade and has two children, both U.S. citizens.

Lawyers and activists said Ingleson is one of a rising number of legal immigrants with relatively old and minor criminal records to be snagged in the federal government's stepped-up efforts to deport those whom authorities refer to as "criminal aliens."

Unlike illegal immigrants captured in raids or while crossing the border, lawyers said, these legal immigrants are often people who believed they had paid their dues, only to be flagged while presenting green cards at customs checkpoints or applying for visa renewals or citizenship.

"The perception among the American public and even among lawmakers is that the people who are being deported are maniacal, homicidal and rapist criminals," said Alison Parker, deputy director of the U.S. program of Human Rights Watch, which published a report last year on deportations of legal immigrants. "In many cases, they're green card holders. They're the family down the street."

A 1996 federal immigration law facilitated such deportations by greatly expanding the categories of crimes that are deportable offenses, including some misdemeanors. The law also removed most legal immigrants' rights to fight expulsion by presenting evidence of community ties or hardship to U.S. citizen relatives, and it was retroactive, so that even those convicted before the law took effect in 1997 can be deported.

A total of 272,389 people were deported in 2006, and 95,752 were deported on criminal grounds, federal statistics show. More than 68 percent of the convictions that triggered deportation were for nonviolent crimes, according to the statistics. The government does not publish figures indicating how many of those deported are lawful permanent residents.

Immigration officials do not deny that they want to deport immigrants with criminal records, legal or illegal, so long as the law allows it.

"What somebody might judge to be minor, somebody else might judge as a threat to the community," said Pat Reilly, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.


http://timesunion.com/ASPStories/Story. ... nkFrom=RSS

A 1996 federal immigration law facilitated such deportations by greatly expanding the categories of crimes that are deportable offenses, including some misdemeanors. The law also removed most legal immigrants' rights to fight expulsion by presenting evidence of community ties or hardship to U.S. citizen relatives, and it was retroactive, so that even those convicted before the law took effect in 1997 can be deported.

This was part of a package of greater enforcement that was wrapped into the 1986, 1996, etc. amnesties that was never really used or reinforced until now.
Now that the Feds are using this to deport perps, all we hear is whine, whine, whine.

If a person that is a GC card holder, an LPR, here on a guest worker visa, etc. thinks that they belong to a 'class' of legal immigrants can't be deported, well, you're wrong. The only group that can not be 'sent packing' are US citizens.

So stealing someones credit card, social security number or other personal information is something to be overlooked huh? But if it was your stuff that was taken and used, you might think otherwise. Not everyone commits crime large or small.

Bye Bye !

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime!

W

Hooray for justice!

Kaine pardons woman facing possible deportation

Tuesday, Aug 12, 2008 - 08:21 PM

BY DENA POTTER

The Associated Press

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine pardoned a Newport News woman today for a 1997 credit-card-fraud conviction. She still faces possible deportation.

It was a simple pardon, which is an official forgiveness for the crime. Kathryn Anne Ingleson's fate remains in the hands of federal immigration officials, who have set her deportation for Thursday.

Ingleson, now 31, moved to the United States from England with her parents when she was 7 as a lawful resident but failed to become a naturalized citizen. In 1997 she was convicted of stealing credit cards from customers at the store where she worked to buy a Christmas tree, some ornaments and other items valued at about $340. She paid restitution and completed probation.

When she returned from visiting a relative in England in 2003, Ingleson was arrested and placed in removal proceedings. Her appeals have been denied by immigration officials and the courts.

Ingleson's attorney, Joseph Peter Drennan of Alexandria, plans to take the pardon tomorrow to the Newport News Circuit Court, where she was convicted, in an attempt to stop her deportation. If the Circuit Court judge agrees to vacate Ingleson's conviction tomorrow based on the pardon, Drennan said he would appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals to throw out the removal order.

"We don't live in a police state. We live under a government that should be informed by wisdom and discretion in enforcement of the laws, and Kathryn is deserving of the relief for which she seeks," Drennan said. "She just wants to get about her life."

Kaine did not issue an absolute pardon, which is granted when the governor becomes convinced that the person did not commit the crime or did not knowingly do it. Instead, the simple pardon is forgiveness for Ingleson having paid restitution, satisfied all sentencing obligations and "provided evidence of a commendable adjustment following conviction," Kaine's attorney Lawrence Roberts wrote to Drennan.

Roberts said "the Commonwealth fully supports action by the federal government to permit Ms. Ingleson to remain in the United States and her continued residence in the Commonwealth."

Ingleson has applied for a stay of deportation with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

A message left after hours for an ICE spokeswoman was not immediately returned.

Ingleson was an 18-year-old single mother when she stole the credit cards in 1996. She confessed when confronted about it, but wasn't prosecuted until the following year after a law took effect that expanded the categories of deportable offenses.

Since then, she has worked at a packaging company, kept a clean record and raised her two children, ages 18 and 9, Drennan said.

"The essential theme here is that this is a lady who had one contact with the law in her entire life," Drennan said. "She was a law-abiding person before this happened she has been a law-abiding since this has happened. She has worked hard and played by the rules."

After her arrest in 2003, Ingleson's case was reviewed by ICE, an Immigration Court judge, the immigration board and the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. Last fall, immigration officials set an Aug. 14 deportation date.

In June, she appealed to Kaine for a pardon.

Kaine spokesman Gordon Hickey said Tuesday the governor acknowledged that Ingleson's deportation is completely in the hands of federal immigration officials.

"Kathryn, culturally, is an American," her lawyer said. "Kathryn, in terms of her allegiance and affinity, would be lost in England."

He called the process of petitioning to return "virtually labyrinthian, and added, "It could take five years, it could take a lifetime."

www.inrich.com

To be honest I would rather see ICE using their resources to go after more illegals and fake marriage "legals" instead of going after established legal immigrants with old minor offenses.