Thread: Attorneys try to stop deportation of Granger restaurant owner

Attorneys try to stop deportation of Granger restaurant owner

Documents allege Granger restaurant owner didn't recieve due process

• By Joseph Dits South Bend Tribune
• Apr 3, 2017 Updated 7 min ago
• (0)

• Michael Caterina

Roberto Beristain of Mishawaka is now in a Texas detention facility as his family tries to prevent his deportation. Photo provided

Granger restaurant owner Roberto Beristain is still in the United States — in a detention facility in Texas — as attorneys across the country file documents to prevent his deportation, said Adam Ansari, a Chicago attorney who’s served as an advocate for the family.

Attorneys are arguing that Beristain was denied due process when, in 2000, he originally received his deportation order in New York.

And that, Ansari said, caused Beristain to lose out on legal avenues that could have helped him to fix his immigration status.


“Everything would have been so much different if (immigration officials) would have properly done their job,” Ansari said.

The case will be born out in a court document that, Ansari said, will be filed Tuesday morning.

Beristain, owner of Eddie’s Steak Shed since January, was picked up by federal immigration officials on Feb. 6 as he made his annual visit with federal immigration agents. Until this year, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents haven’t tried to deport him and even enabled him to gain a work permit, driver's license and a Social Security number marked "Valid only with Department of Homeland Security authorization."

That changed when President Donald Trump widened the scope of which illegal immigrants should be deported.

Now, the crux of the attorneys’ arguments boils down to the day in 2000 that Beristain and his wife, Helen, inadvertently crossed into Canada while they were visiting Niagara Falls. Border agents detected his illegal immigration status.

U.S. immigration officials labeled him an “alien in the United States who has not been admitted or paroled.”

That, attorneys allege, is a mistake and that Beristain should have been termed an “arriving alien,” according to a court document filed in New Mexico, where Beristain was detained last week.

The difference in terms could have allowed him more legal relief, the document states.

Beristain lacks any criminal record. And his wife, Helen Beristain, has said that, prior to this year, the couple have tried several times to legally fix Roberto’s immigration status.

They have lived in Mishawaka with their three children.


It’s unclear when and how ICE plans to transport Beristain back to his native Mexico. ICE officials have said they don’t release that information for security reasons.

Yet more court documents will be filed, Ansari said, along with an appeal with ICE in Texas to keep Beristain in the U.S.

“We need to be sure he’s given the proper opportunity to be heard,” said Ansari, who’s coordinating the work of the other attorneys.

jdits@sbtinfo.com

http://www.southbendtribune.com/news...82ed8eb7c.html

Restaurants brace for more worksite raids

By Joseph Dits The South Bend Tribune Apr 5, 2017 Updated 3 hrs ago

Roberto Beristain, owner of the popular Granger restaurant Eddie's Steak Shed, was deported Tuesday night in what his attorneys describe as an abrupt and unannounced move. Beristain was in a detention facility when “they suddenly told me it was time to go,” Beristain said in a press release that his attorneys issued.

It came on the same day that attorneys filed a court document aimed at keeping Beristain in the country — a document that claims he was denied due process in 2000 when he’d first received his deportation order in New York. If that was proven true, his attorneys argue, it could have provided Beristain more legal options for him to fix his immigration status.

His wife, Helen, has said the couple have tried many times over the past 17 years to fix his status.

“They told me to get my stuff, they put me in the back of a van, and sped toward the border,” the press release quotes Beristain as saying. “They took me to another facility while in transport to sign paperwork. I asked to speak with my attorney, but was told there wasn’t time for that. At around 10:00 p.m., I was dropped off at the Mexico-U.S. Border and walked into Mexico.”

Adam Ansari, a Chicago attorney who’s been coordinating the efforts of fellow lawyers who’ve filed documents across the country, said the attorneys weren’t notified of his deportation as they should have been. They didn’t learn he was deported until they received a frantic call late Tuesday night from Helen Beristain, saying that he was already in the border city of Juarez, Mexico.

“This was an attempt to short-circuit the justice process by intentionally removing him before a judge could stop his removal,” Ansari claimed in the press release.

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency confirmed the deportation. In the past it has said that, as a security measure, it doesn’t release when it will deport people.

The Beristains have lived in Mishawaka, where they’ve been raising three children. In January, Roberto Beristain became owner of Eddie’s Steak Shed, which has about 20 employees.

He was detained Feb. 6 when he visited an ICE office, as he’s done every year, in an effort to remain in the U.S. Doing so, he joined nearly 1 million people in the U.S. with deportation orders. But the priority for whom the agency actually should remove widened this year under an order from President Donald Trump.

In cooperation with ICE, Beristain had gained a work permit, driver's license and a Social Security number marked "Valid only with Department of Homeland Security authorization."

Over the past two months, he’s been held in detention facilities in Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Louisiana, New Mexico and Texas.

The press release from Beristain’s attorneys states that they will “continue to fight on behalf of Roberto, and will pursue all available legal and political remedies to bring Roberto back and correct the mistake immigration officials created nearly two decades ago.”

The story has gained coverage in major newspapers across the country and even prompted the BBC and Radio New Zealand to contact The Tribune, hoping to reach the Beristain family for their own stories.

On social media, Beristain's plight continues to draw heated discussions. Critics show little sympathy for illegal immigrants while others point to a complicated immigration system that has needed reforms for several years.

“The Trump administration treats noncitizens like Roberto like lawbreakers, even when they do everything in their power to obey the law, but the law was broken in this case by the immigration authorities,” said Chuck Roth, director of litigation for the National Immigrant Justice Center. “ICE’s actions have torn a father from his three U.S. citizen children, a husband from his citizen spouse, and a business owner from his American employees.”

http://www.southbendtribune.com/news...1825be474.html

Buh Bye!! LOVE IT!! GO ICE!!!

I didn't know ICE gave out SS#'s. Since when. We need to stop that insanity now.

Is he illegal or not?

It is not complicated - it is not complex. Did he come here illegally?

It does sound like something odd is going on - but could it be our very own ICE has been playing fast and loose with the rules for a long time and maybe that's why no effort has been made to deport?

Maybe he has favored status for some other reason -

The news always tell they have children. Does that matter? Well, of course, it matters. No one wants to see children suffer for what their parents have chosen to do. These people chose to have children they knew might someday be hurt because of the actions of their parents. So, because this person chose to break our laws, we are supposed to forgive him because he has children.

There is a town in Texas that has about 5 prisons - the saddest thing about driving by there, is the playground equipment there for children on visiting day.

"The sins of the father----". Children suffer because of the actions of the parents - not because of the law. No one likes that and it doesn't seem fair - but some things are just facts that can't be changed. If we allow him and others to remain with their children - our children will be hurt. This country didn't do it to the child, the parent did.