Thread: Illegal Immigrants Are Deported From Va. to Native Countries

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01039.html

On a Long Flight to Nowhere
Illegal Immigrants Are Deported From Va. to Native Countries

By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 25, 2006; A01



The passengers settled uncomfortably into the narrow seats of the Boeing 737 as a woman in a blue uniform launched into the pre-flight safety speech that has become a ritual of modern air travel.

But her tone made it clear that she was no flight attendant, and this was no ordinary flight.

"Keep your seat belts on at all times. Don't touch any of the buttons above your head, and don't touch the window shades," the woman, a U.S. marshal, commanded in Spanish. "Once we're in the air, we'll give you something to eat, and then you can go to the bathroom-- with permission . Did you hear me?"

The passengers -- 105 men shackled at the wrists and the ankles--grumbled their assent. Then they peered out the thick, blurry windows for a last glimpse of Virginia. Once, they had been hopeful newcomers to the United States. Now, they were about to leave for good on a deportation flight for illegal immigrants run by the Department of Homeland Security.

As the plane began to hurtle down the runaway, many of them let out a cheer. It was their first time on an airplane.

In seat 7A, Jose de Jesus Galea, 37, stared morosely out his window, unmoved. The burly Salvadoran pet store owner had called Virginia home for 21 years. It seemed incredible, he said later, that he would never again see the flat, forested landscape that was receding rapidly from view.

Just as strange was the thought that he would soon be back in a country he last saw when he was 17. The year was 1985, El Salvador was in the throes of civil war, and Galea had just been discharged from one of the army's most ruthless battalions. Pressed into service when he was 14, Galea said he was taught to torture the unit's captives by pushing needles under their fingernails. He had buried innocent civilians alive, and he was haunted by guilty flashbacks of their screams. Now he was being deported back because of a drunken assault.

Deportation is a fate that befalls only a fraction of illegal immigrants, though such flights may become commonplace if some of the more restrictive immigration reforms pending in Congress are adopted.

Although U.S. authorities turn away or deport more than 1.6 million people attempting to cross the border illegally every year, once an immigrant manages to sneak into U.S. territory, the chances of getting caught are minimal. In 2004, the most recent year for which statistics are available, authorities deported only 104,000 immigrants who had been in the United States for three days or longer before they were apprehended. That's less than 1 percent of the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

Those who are deported often come to the attention of immigration officials only because they commit a crime. Authorities in the Washington area often wait until they have a critical mass of deportees, then charter a plane to fly them to a detention facility near the U.S. border for final transport to their home countries.

Such was the case with the men aboard the somewhat worn, plain white aircraft rolling onto the runway at Dulles International Airport one recent afternoon, its destination Alexandria, La.

Watching over them were 16 marshals, who had reason to be wary. About 45 percent of the deportees had been convicted of violent crimes. Others had committed offenses as minor as public drunkenness. Although most were Salvadorans, there were natives of the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Jamaica and Honduras.

The men's appearance was as diverse as their backgrounds. There were fresh-faced teenagers wearing baggy jeans that drooped around their ankles because the marshals had confiscated their belts. There was an older man dressed in a deeply rumpled business suit that made him seem at once dignified and pathetic.

And, stretching a long leg into the aisle from seat 9C, there was Oscar Barilla, 25, whose chest and back were tattooed with the gothic letters and fearsome symbols of his gang, Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. Barilla consented to be photographed for this article, but, like the other 15 gang members aboard, he refused to be interviewed.

Galea, the pet store owner, said that after he sneaked into the United States, he found in Virginia not only the psychological help he was seeking after the atrocities of El Salvador's civil war, but also a fresh start. He was granted political asylum and started working in a cafeteria. He said he enrolled in night school and received a high school diploma, then a bachelor's degree in theology. He married a U.S. citizen and had a son.

But he also garnered a series of convictions for drunken driving. Then, one evening in 2002, he broke a window to get into his house. His wife called 911.

Galea maintained that his wife mistakenly thought an intruder was in the house. The commonwealth's attorney said that when police arrived, Galea's wife told them that Galea was drunk and that she was concerned because he was upstairs in bed with their son and might be molesting the boy.

When the officers entered the bedroom, a scuffle ensued. Galea said he had been confused and acting in self-defense. Unconvinced, a jury convicted him of assaulting and unlawfully wounding two officers--securing Galea a four-year prison sentence and a seat on the deportation flight afterward. "I will miss everything about the United States," Galea said with a sigh. "I had my whole life here."

In the rear of the plane, in seat 17B, Tulio Estrada was lamenting not how much he was leaving behind, but how little.

The 25-year-old prep cook said he had been full of plans when he stole in from Guatemala. He was going to earn enough to pay a doctor to cure his mother's aches and his little brother's mental illness. He was going to save up enough to buy a small business or maybe some land back in Guatemala. Nine years later, he was still living in a one-bedroom rental apartment in Arlington with two other men, barely earning enough to send his mother money for basic expenses.

One evening last fall, Estrada said, he went to a wedding reception and got into a drunken fight. Someone called police. Now he was being shipped back to Guatemala in the same white polo shirt and work pants he was wearing when he was arrested. Like the rest of the passengers, he carried no other possessions save a red mesh sack the size of a pillowcase packed with a change of underwear, a Bible and shampoo.

"Sure, I had planned on returning to Guatemala someday. But not like this -- with nothing," he said sadly.

The plane reached cruising altitude. Several marshals began passing out box lunches.

Rafael Llano, a tall Dominican with dreadlocks, took his box with a scowl. A resident of the United States since he was 8, Llano said he felt out of place on the flight.

"I went to school here. My mom, my dad, all my brothers live here," Llano, 22, said in unaccented English. "I'm as American as the president. The only difference between us is that he has a piece of paper proving it. It makes me so angry."

Llano said he was a permanent resident but lost that privilege when was convicted on drug charges and sentenced to five years in prison. Now, he said, "I'm going to a place where I'm a stranger, where I don't know nothing from nothing."

He did not plan on staying there long. "I have to find my way back. I have three kids there. I have no choice."

The plane began its descent. A hush fell over the passengers. It touched down with a gentle bump. This time, there were no cheers.

Such wonderful examples of the fine, hard working people who come, only to better themselves and enrich our society. We'll miss you amigos.

What no movie or peanuts?

How soon till they are back in the country.