http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longi ... 0502.story

Casualties of a crackdown
Efforts to deport illegal immigrants thought to be gang members or sexual predators have snared those with no criminal past, advocates say


BY BART JONES
STAFF WRITER

A desperate Josué Suarez needed to land a job, but as an undocumented immigrant {criminal} he lacked valid identification. So a year ago he went to the Department of Motor Vehicles, walked over to the counter and handed over a phony work permit as identification {a crime} to apply for a non-driver's ID.

DMV employees quickly noticed the bogus document, and department investigators arrested Suarez, 21, of Central Islip. When he showed up at Nassau County jail to serve his 18-day sentence for using a forged instrument in January, authorities ran his name through a database and discovered he had an outstanding deportation order issued in 1990 -- a year after his family brought him across the U.S.-Mexico border at age 5.

On March 3, he was deported to his native Honduras, a country he barely remembers after growing up on Long Island. Today, he and 14 other relatives sleep on the floor of a great-aunt's house in San Pedro Sula.

"They sent me to a country where I know nobody, where I have no life and no future. Every day is a new shocker for me," Suarez said in a telephone interview, adding that where he lives the toilet doesn't work and the water from the kitchen sink reeks. "I'm not going to drink water you can smell."

Suarez has been caught up in what immigration lawyers and advocates said is an escalating crackdown on undocumented immigrants, with beefed-up immigration and law enforcement agencies cooperating more closely and sharing more sophisticated databases. Authorities say the campaign is designed to catch gang members and sexual predators who are here illegally, but immigration advocates say undocumented immigrants who have committed minor offenses or have no criminal record also are being arrested and deported. The number of noncriminal deportations has more than doubled in the last four years, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"When you have a crackdown on immigrants, what happens is a lot of innocent people get swept up," said Huntington-based attorney David Sperling, who represents Suarez. "They're tearing families apart and causing terrible trauma."

Suarez's mother, Maria Suarez, a Bay Shore factory worker, is devastated. "As a mother, as a human being, it is unjust that they deport a boy without investigating the situation," Suarez, 45, said in Spanish. "With so many criminals here, they take an innocent boy."

Her son could have qualified for temporary legal status in the United States a few years ago, but she said she could only afford the $500 immigration and legal fees for her and elder son Franklin, 23.

In the past, undocumented immigrants like Suarez and Brazil native Marino Gomes da Silva, who was picked up in a sweep of unlicensed home improvement contractors in Suffolk County last fall and will be deported this month, generally remained undetected in the United States for years, Sperling and other attorneys said. Gomes, of Bay Shore, is married to a U.S. citizen and helps parent her two U.S.-born children, but like Suarez had an outstanding deportation order he said he never knew about.

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