Thread: Metro Nashville police block visas for crime victims, witnes

Metro Nashville police block visas for crime victims, witnesses
Immigrants risk deportation when Metro won't certify them as informants, victims
By Janell Ross April 18, 2010

Comments (34)

Luis Cisneros' body was found two days before Christmas 2003.


The 4-year-old had been scalded, beaten and dumped behind a dirt mound in a West Nashville park. His mother and her boyfriend fled to Mexico, their native country. The FBI put the boyfriend on its Most Wanted list, alongside people like Osama bin Laden.
Three years after the grisly crime, Teodora Patlan Cano felt compelled to seek justice for her dead nephew. She called Metro police and told them where her sister was living.
That act got Patlan Cano deported late last year.
A visa that protects illegal immigrants who witness or become victims of crimes might have prevented that, but it requires certification from local police. Metro police rejected Patlan Cano's request to be certified as a witness, an event immigrants and their advocates say happens far too frequently with that department.
"What we know is they did not lift a finger to help this woman," said Elliott Ozment, Patlan Cano's Nashville immigration attorney. "This, it appears, is how Metro Nashville treats its informants and people who are trying to help this city fight egregious crimes."
Police department officials contend they have an efficient certification process and recognize that the visas are valuable incentives to get illegal immigrants to cooperate. The department will participate next month in a national program to help develop best practices for handling crime victim and witness certifications and requests.
Many fear calling police
Many immigrants living illegally in the United States are leery of calling police when trouble happens. They don't want to draw attention to themselves, risking arrest and deportation.
But the visas for crime witnesses and victims are tools that law enforcement and prosecutors say help keep everyone safer — immigrants and citizens alike — because they make a large share of the population more comfortable
helping police do their jobs.
Some of the people who know best how the program is working locally couldn't be reached for comment last week.
Patlan Cano was forced to leave the country after Metro police denied her request to certify her status as a crime witness. Messages left at a number registered to her in Mexico weren't returned.
Her attorney said she faces tremendous pressure and threats from relatives who think she shouldn't have given up family to police. The couple who killed Luis are serving a life sentence in the U.S.
Since September 2008, Metro police have considered 16 visa certification requests. All but three were denied.
By comparison, the Davidson County district attorney's office has issued about 80 certifications for crime victims since December 2007 and rejects about one out of every six requests, said Jessica Turner, the victim witness coordinator in the district attorney's office. She said she has never been asked to certify a visa for a witness because the federal courts typically handle the sorts of cases that would qualify.
The Nashville Bar Association's immigration subcommittee has identified the visa issue as a top priority for the group to help resolve this year.
Complaints about access to the visa programs are common nationwide. This week, the New York Police Department said it would overhaul its certification process because immigrants were waiting years for decisions and too
many requests were denied.
Groups advocating against domestic violence say the delays and rate of refusal put women who are being abused at particular risk.
The Center for Immigration Studies advocates for stricter immigration laws but recognizes the need for these visa programs to help keep Americans safe. But there also is a need for tight controls, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the center. Vaughan has heard reports of illegal immigrants coming in with their spouses to claim they've been victims of domestic violence and ask for visa certification.
Cooperation required
The visas fall into two categories.
Police and prosecutors can initiate an S visa, sometimes called the "snitch visa," to keep witnesses to crimes in the country or bring them back so they can testify. The witness must have information related to criminal organizations or terrorist activities and be willing to cooperate fully.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issues up to 200 S visas each fiscal year.
Victims of certain crimes can pursue a U visa on their own or with the help of a lawyer. Those crimes include domestic violence, rape, extortion, trafficking, female genital mutilation and felony assault. But to apply, victims also must have written certification from a law enforcement agency. Immigration officials can issue up to 10,000 U visas each fiscal year.
100,000 could qualify
The S visa and U visa grant the holder temporary legal status and can extend to immediate family. The U visa allows the holder to work and, after four years, apply for what's commonly known as a green card — permanent legal residency and the path to citizenship.
An estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants live in Tennessee and could find themselves qualifying for either visa.
When requests come to Metro, its legal staff pulls the case file on the crime being cited, said Deputy Chief Honey Pike, Metro's visa certifying official since September 2008. Pike and her team use it and sometimes interviews with prosecutors and officers to determine if the person was the victim of a qualifying crime and cooperated with law enforcement.
"There's absolutely nothing that requires that we even do this," Pike said. "This is something that we want to do. In fact, it's the right thing to do for the community and the criminal justice process."
Pike and Turner said that when they reject certification requests, it's because the victims or witnesses don't fit the parameters of the program.
But it's not their job to decide, local immigration lawyers contend. Just issue the certification and let federal immigration officials decide whether the applicants qualify for a visa.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman agreed: The role of the police in visa requests is simply to certify that an individual was a crime victim or witness, Sharon Scheidhauer said. Her agency has the sole authority to make decisions about whether to grant visas.
In late 2007, the federal government set rules that created a structure for the U visa program. Before that, many law enforcement agencies would not certify crime victims or witnesses. In others, the person with the authority to certify was not clearly defined, Peter Schey, executive director at the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights, said in an e-mail.
Schey said some of the certification delays being experienced around the country now might be resolved if the rules of the program were changed to allow the thousands of officers who respond to calls for help or investigate crimes to sign certifications.
Choice is difficult
Questions about Metro's process aren't limited to the Patlan Cano case.
Claudia Lizardi's parents brought her from Central America to the U.S. when she was 6 years old.
She went to schoolhere. Her daughter was born here. She has even been the victim of a crime here — her ex-boyfriend beat, stalked and harassed her while living in Nashville.
After multiple beatings, Lizardi, 28, took out an order of protection against her ex-boyfriend.
When he violated it and hit her again, he was arrested.
The day that Lizardi went to court for an initial hearing in the case, a prosecutor explained that the ex-boyfriend could be released on bail pending trial. But, because he was an illegal immigrant, Lizardi could drop the charges, and he would be quickly deported. Lizardi chose to drop the charges.
Nobody told her about the victims visa, which she may have been eligible for if the case had gone to trial.
"If I had the choice to make over again, I still don't know what I would do," she said. "Of course, the visa would be very useful. But I was also really scared. I think the woman who laid out the options could see that. I think they were trying to help me."
Later, a lawyer helping Lizardi with a traffic ticket court date she missed told her she might be eligible for a U visa. Lizardi applied in July 2008, but confusion over who was authorized to provide her certification caused U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to kick the application back. Ozment, her attorney, plans to ask Pike for certification now that Metro has identified her as the contact person.
Nashville immigration lawyer Mario Ramos said he has seen witness visas denied in cases of clients witnessing or offering information about the murder of their own relatives.
"I understand that immigration law is complicated and that, where the U visa is concerned, it's a relatively new thing," he said. "But people's lives are literally at stake here. Nashville has to do better."
Janell Ross can be reached atjross1@tennessean.com.




http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100 ... +witnesses

This is illegal on illegal crime. No American citizen or legal immigrant would have a problem reporting a crime to police. The victims are illegal and that in itself is a crime against the American people and legal immigrants.

I dont even know where to start with this one. Why did she wait three years? And why did she reveal her identity? She only reported where her sister was living. They already knew who committed the crime. She could have done this annonymously. Many many crimes can be reported anonymously. She threw her sister under the bus to try to get legal status, not because she was seeking justice. If she was seeking justice, she would have done it anonymously and right away. Furthermore, if she was given legal status then she could bring in all her family members. I dont want them here. They are angry at her because she reported the murder of her nephew? What the hec kind of people would get angry about that? Are they the type of people we want here? Um, no.

The woman was not a crime victim or a witness to the crime. So much ado (the article) about nothing because she wasn't eligible.