Thread: Teenage felony catches up with immigrant, 63

http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandfork ... 849746.htm

Posted on Sun, Jun. 18, 2006

Teenage felony catches up with immigrant, 63

BY RUTH MORRIS
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - For the past 42 years, Giuseppe Eterno has walked a straight line down the middle of a suburban life. He bought a house in Davie, Fla., grew mangos and avocados, married and divorced, took his kids bowling on weekends, and bred parrots in the backyard.

It wasn't until the Italian brick mason applied for citizenship in 2002 that immigration authorities dug up the details of a drunken brawl almost half a century ago, when Eterno fatally stabbed a man with a letter opener. Instead of an invitation to a naturalization ceremony, he was summoned to a deportation hearing.

"The judge said to me, `If I deport you, where do you want to live?'" Eterno recalled from the Krome detention center in southwest Miami-Dade County. "I said, `Your honor, I only know this country.'"

Eterno, 63, is scheduled for deportation this week to Sicily, where he last visited in 1959.

For legal experts, his story underscores a shift in immigration enforcement by the Bush administration that is flagging more and more felons for deportation for long-forgotten crimes. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks prompted authorities to consolidate background information in a way that never had been done before. As a result, immigration agents have much wider access to police and Secret Service data when they plug a name into their computers.

That's good news for national security, immigration lawyers say, and bad news for holders of permanent resident cards, commonly known as green cards, who don't realize they've committed a deportable offense. Typically, they cross the radar screen unwittingly, by applying for citizenship or by traveling.

"Immigration authorities have better coordinated their liaison resources, to their credit," said Eterno's attorney, Jeffrey Brauwerman, a former immigration judge and INS counsel who is now an immigration lawyer in Plantation, Fla. "They're casting this net into the water any time they can to see what they can come up with."

But when the net pulls in cases with compelling humanitarian factors, said Brauwerman, authorities are taking a tough line. "We find them being very strict these days, and not exercising discretion very often," he said.

Eterno asked the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to do just that. Brauwerman applied for a "deferred action" to stop the deportation, and told authorities his client is disabled by a herniated disc and takes care of his 90-year-old mother who has advanced Alzheimer's disease. Eterno also has asthma, and has suffered two heart attacks. The action was denied.

"If this case does not reek of humanitarian factors, I do not know what does," Brauwerman said. "These are the people this administration is targeting for removal."

ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said Eterno had failed to appeal his initial deportation order, and that her agency was simply upholding the law.

"The bottom line is that this man is a convicted murderer who's been ordered removed," she said. "Our priority is to identify, arrest and remove those who present a threat to our community."

For Eterno's friends and family, his imminent removal results from a one-two punch of bad luck and bad judgment. Eterno was 12 when his family left their farm in Sicily, where they grew wheat and grapes, for the hustle of Queens, N.Y. At 19, he went to jail for the killing that now appears on his original deportation order. He pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and spent two years in jail.

Eterno said he knew his victim, and was among the friends who rushed him to the hospital. He was unaware the crime would meet up with him later in life.

After his release, Eterno followed construction work to South Florida. He settled in Davie, built a fountain in his yard, married and had three children. In the meantime, 1996 immigration reforms expanded the definition of deportable crimes and included past offenses.

As part of a legalization plan being mulled over in Congress, members might widen that definition still further, said Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Both Senate and House immigration bills now under consideration contemplate new provisions to expand removals.

"It's getting harsher and harsher, and instead of having a policy where discretion and compassion are allowed, we have a zero-tolerance policy," she said. "It's leaving people without the bread-winner of their family - people who may have come here as small children. It's nonsensical."

Immigrant advocates and lobbyists say it's been challenging to win congressional support for softening deportation laws, partly because the public is unaware that immigrants can be deported for minor offenses. One proposal floating around Capitol Hill would make it a deportable crime for a Green Card holder to fail twice to register a change of address with the Department of Homeland Security.

Advocates of stricter immigration laws, meanwhile, say retroactive deportations like Eterno's represent a small number of overall removals - several thousand a year - and shouldn't drive policy.

"I think most Americans think people who kill other people and then serve time ought to be made to leave the country," said Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C. "If he did it four years ago, or 40 years ago, that's not relevant in my mind. The fundamental problem is that we're not deporting enough people, not that we're deporting too few."

ICE has reported steady increases in deportations, from 149,523 in fiscal 2003 to 156,988 in fiscal 2004 and 167,742 in fiscal 2005. More than half had criminal backgrounds.

As in many retroactive cases, it was Eterno's attempt to naturalize that triggered his initial deportation order. He could have responded by seeking a waiver that asks judges to weigh a deportee's good behavior against his or her crime, but his lawyer at the time failed to file for the stay.

Unaware that he could not leave the United States while his application was pending, Eterno took his girlfriend on a Caribbean cruise between court dates. In the eyes of the law, he had just voluntarily deported himself. His legal options whittled away.

"OK, he goofed," said Joe Fontana, Eterno's cousin. "But he's been a good citizen. He owns property. He pays taxes. He raised three children who are citizens. Where does it stop?"

Speaking by phone from Krome, Eterno said his health was too fragile to work in Italy, and he no longer has family there. Asked what he would do on arrival, he said he would probably look for a hotel.

He wasn't sure whether his disability pay would still reach him, or how his rusty Sicilian would hold up. A sister has taken over the care of their ailing mother, who confusedly asks where her son has gone.

"I don't think it's fair," Eterno said. "I'm not a criminal. I made a mistake when I was young. For 44 years I proved myself. ... I feel like someone sentenced me to death."

What about the family of the man you killed and only did two years of prison time for? The small sentence you served alone is criminal. Bye Bye guy, sell your house and your business and get on that plane and forget about your disability checks that you do not deserve as you are here illegally and do not let the door hit you on the way out.

Was he here legally after he got out of jail?

Was he here legally after he got out of jail?

I would certainly hope not!

flagging more and more felons for deportation for long-forgotten crimes

I am sure to the family of the man who was killed this is not a long forgotten crime.

Like I have said before rules are rules. He has been breaking the rules for over 40 years. This is not something that can be looked at on a case by case basis. If you are illegal you should get deported, period, end of story. This country does look at legal immigration on a case by case basis, which is how it should be. I know legal immigration is a broken system also that needs to be streamlined and made more efficient. However, the problem that is threatening the country has to be solved first before we can move on to other issues.