Thread: Threat of deportation causes gnawing fear

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 20392/1075

Threat of deportation causes gnawing fear
By Joan D. Laguardia
Originally posted on July 02, 2006

On doughnut Sunday at St. Andrew Catholic Church in Cape Coral, Ronny and Marie Desir sip coffee and get to know a fellow churchgoer who happens to be shopping for a corner curio cabinet.

The Desirs own Union Furniture in Fort Myers, and they talk over pastries in the kind of serendipitous meeting that leads to a budding friendship.

They chat about their children and school, work and growth — typical topics in Southwest Florida.

But Ronny Desir has an uncommon worry. Most of his customers are Haitian, and some of them might soon be shipped home.

"I have a lot of customers who get deported. I know people who have deportation letters in their hands," Desir said. "It's going to kill my business."

Uncertainty and tension permeate the Haitian community. Those here illegally keep a low profile and save money. Citizen business owners, such as Desir, are watching revenue drop.

"Deportation, it's coming up for all the illegals. I have people who are on the verge of being deported. We are hoping it doesn't come to that," said Faustin, program director for the Haitian Center of Catholic Charities, a branch of its Immigration and Refugee Services in Fort Myers.

In 2004, U.S. immigration officials deported 367 Haitians nationwide.

Numbers for 2005 and 2006 are not yet available.

Haitian supporters say the 2004 numbers don't reflect the quickening pace of apprehensions and deportations.

"I know there is a lot. It has been going on for a long time," said the Rev. Jean Marie Ligonde, leader of the Haitian ministry at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Fort Myers.

Families at risk

Nearly all the deportees have been men, said Desilus Nicolas, Haitian caseworker at Guadalupe Social Services, an immigrant-outreach program of Catholic Charities in Immokalee.

He recently asked a client about to be deported to talk to The News-Press.

After building a life here for six years, the maintenance worker at a Naples resort left the United States by his own choice to keep a deportation off his record.

The man left his wife and two children behind. Afraid for his family, he declined to be interviewed.

"He feels his head is burning as if there is a fire in it because his family is suffering," said Nicolas, who became a citizen in 1996 and has lived here about 30 years.

"I don't blame the United States for stopping people from coming in to the U.S.," he said. "The people who are already here, why deport them?"

"Close the door completely. Seal it, but those who are already here, help them out," Nicolas said. "They pay Social Security. They work."

Women left behind assume the full burden of caring for their homes and children as well as supporting their husbands in Haiti. Many work two jobs. With father deported and mother at work, the children are at risk.

"It is very harmful to the whole community at large and to specific families," Ligonde said. "If (children) become delinquent, they are a problem for the whole society."

"They are born here. They are American. They can't be deported, but their parents can. When the insecurity comes, they inherit the insecurity, too," Ligonde said.

When whole families are deported, Americanized children have trouble assimilating into Haitian society.

"They don't even speak the language. They don't know the culture," he said.

Misery in Haiti

Deportees often go straight to jail in Haiti.

"They consider you as a criminal over there. They think if you get deported, you got in trouble here," said Frank LeGrand, a Haitian American who owns six variety stores in Collier County.

Many deportees stay in jail until they pay fines.

"The more you stay, they lower the price until you can pay it, but prison in Haiti is hell. You don't want to stay one day. You try to pay," Ligonde said.

Paying too much or too soon suggests that the family has money and makes the deportee a target for kidnapping and demands for ransom.

If a deportee can avoid jail and kidnapping, he still faces a life of poverty.

Most people who flee Haiti sell everything to pay for their emigration. They have nothing left in Haiti, except for the family who once relied on them to send money home.

"I think everybody in the world knows what's going on in Haiti," Nicolas said.

Conditions are so bad in Haiti that families will risk coming illegally to an unfamiliar country. They flee to the Dominican Republic, Bahamas and even Cuba, as well as France, Canada and the United States.

Many are students. They are bright and yearn for education, and it's easier to get a student visa than a work permit.

"Many of them are going to study," Nicolas said. "They have to go because they don't have any other options."

"Young people hate Haiti. They don't see the future for Haiti," Nicolas said.

Many have some kind of documentation and immediately petition for legal status or citizenship, so they are somewhat easy to track down.

"The ones who get denied usually don't leave until they are forced out, and they are running around scared," said Christina Leddin, an immigration specialist with the Amigos Center of Lutheran Services.

Immigration crackdowns and deportations have already affected Haitian business owners.

"The ones that don't carry any legal documents, they are a problem," LeGrand said.

Whether his customers come from Haiti, Mexico or some other country, without legal ID, he can't cash their checks.

Business is getting quiet.

"When it's bad, it's bad for everybody," LeGrand said.

[quote="Brian503a"]http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060702/NEWS01/607020392/1075

Threat of deportation causes gnawing fear
By Joan D. Laguardia
Originally posted on July 02, 2006 quote]

To quote again: "Threat of deportation causes gnawing fear."

My response: GOOOOOOOODDDDDD Please go back to your countries of origin. I'm asking nicely here.

EDIT HERE: I do feel sympathy for citizens of third world countries such as Haiti. But, the USA has many poor children/families too along with a growing and vanishing middle class. We just cannot take on the rest of the third world countries' problems without destroying our own nation.

Those from Haiti, Mexico, China, India, or any other country whose citizens try to legally or illegally migrate to the USA, need to demand from their leaders a better way of life instead of trying to freeload off other nations. They also need to practice some serious birth control.

Originally Posted by noillegalimmigrationannie

Originally Posted by Brian503a

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060702/NEWS01/607020392/1075

Threat of deportation causes gnawing fear
By Joan D. Laguardia
Originally posted on July 02, 2006 quote]

To quote again: "Threat of deportation causes gnawing fear."

My response: GOOOOOOOODDDDDD Please go back to your countries of origin. I'm asking nicely here.

There's one problem, ANNIE
They're NEVER Mexicans that are being deported.

Doesn't that seen awfully strange? Always OTM getting sent away while the Mexicans are raising havoc and getting released.

Originally Posted by 2ndamendsis

Originally Posted by noillegalimmigrationannie

Originally Posted by Brian503a

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060702/NEWS01/607020392/1075

Threat of deportation causes gnawing fear
By Joan D. Laguardia
Originally posted on July 02, 2006 quote]


To quote again: "Threat of deportation causes gnawing fear."

My response: GOOOOOOOODDDDDD Please go back to your countries of origin. I'm asking nicely here.

There's one problem, ANNIE
They're NEVER Mexicans that are being deported.

Doesn't that seen awfully strange? Always OTM getting sent away while the Mexicans are raising havoc and getting released.

You're right 2ndamendsis,

The ones being sent away/deported are usually OTMs. It isn't fair or right. I've read on pro-LEGAL but anti-ILLEGAL websites run by LEGAL IMMIGRANTS that they are angry about this issue. Why should Mexicans or other Hispanics get to sneak across our borders and demand all types of freebies at taxpayer expense, yet, Vietnamese, Chinese, Russian, Irish or any other immigrant group has to play by the rules (usually)?

Annie

I want MORE than gnawwwwing fear. I want gut wrenching, agonizing worry, and fretting of monumental proportions that see illegals biting their nails down to the quick, to a point where they have bleeding nubs for fingernails, I want heart stopping angst and emotional turmoil for those criminals here illegally.

Illegal is illegal, send them all back to their own countries. Stop leeching off us the american taxpayers. Make your own countries better and yes please do exercise birth control. These people are ignorant and keep having children that they cannot possible support of feed. We are not going to feed and take care of the whole world. That gumball theory is correct as their numbers in their own countries keep growing they must take action to make it better there, not by coming here.