July 23, 2018
This story is a collaboration with The Marshall Project.
An estimated half a million New Yorkers are undocumented. Whether
they’ve lived here for two months or 20 years, they came to this city of
immigrants — a place where more than a third of the population was born in
another country — looking for the same things that have brought newcomers here
for centuries: work and school opportunities, religious freedom, family, and a
haven from violence, persecution, political upheaval, and natural disaster.
In this “sanctuary city,” the local government promises to defend
New Yorkers regardless of status, restricting law-enforcement cooperation with
federal immigration agents (although not prohibiting it entirely, to the
chagrin of many immigrant advocates). But in recent months, amid headlines
about terrified toddlers in “baby jails” and a president who refers to migrants
as an “infestation,” it’s become increasingly clear that even New York City
doesn’t feel safe for the undocumented.
Now these are everyday scenes in the city: A Ecuadoran man gets
arrested while delivering pizza in Brooklyn. A Chinese father of two is
detained during an interview to become a legal permanent resident. Across the
boroughs, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have appeared in
courthouses, workplaces, neighborhood streets, even a church, according to one
advocacy group, sowing panic.
In the eight months following Donald Trump’s inauguration, ICE
arrests in the region jumped by 67 percent compared to the same period in the
previous year, and arrests of immigrants with no criminal convictions increased
225 percent. During that time, ICE arrested 2,031 people in its New York “area
of responsibility,” which includes the five boroughs and surrounding counties.
These aren’t unprecedented numbers: ICE arrested almost four times as many
people in 2010 in New York as it did last year, and it picks up far fewer
people here than in other parts of the country.
Thanks to free legal assistance, in which Mayor de Blasio has
invested $30 million, New York–area immigrants are also more likely than their
counterparts elsewhere in the United States to be represented in court. (Eighty
percent in Queens versus, say, 39 percent in South Carolina.) Partly as a
result, they’re also less likely to get deported, according to data from
Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Among the
five U.S. counties with the most immigration cases, Queens had the highest
proportion of immigrants who were granted deportation relief and the lowest
proportion ordered removed from the country.
Despite all of that, Trump’s immigration crackdown has instilled a
new level of fear throughout the city. Before he took office, many undocumented
immigrants who were considered low priority for deportation — because they
didn’t have criminal records, for example —were allowed to stay as long as they
regularly reported to immigration authorities. But Trump has expanded the number
of people considered a priority for deportation. Now people whose only offense
is staying in the country illegally are being flagged for removal.
Those who are arrested are often subjected to inhumane conditions
in overcrowded detention facilities while they await deportation proceedings,
which can take months or even years. Although many manage to stave off
deportation with the help of a lawyer, scrambling to pay the thousands of
dollars in legal fees, others are not so lucky. Flown to countries where they
may not have lived in decades, the deported often arrive with no money, no
phone, no place to stay. Back in New York, their absences, often dizzyingly
sudden, leave children, spouses, friends, churches, and entire communities
reeling — and wondering who could disappear next.
It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that many immigrant New Yorkers
who for years have tried to do the right thing — like paying taxes and checking
in with ICE — are retreating into the shadows. “This Trump administration came
in, even the permanent residents, even the people who have their status, they
have this fear,” says Youngmin Lo, 35, an undocumented South Korean pastor at
Faith Presbyterian Church in Maspeth, Queens. “And the people who are
undocumented, I think they realize it’s time to hide.”
To understand what life is like for undocumented New Yorkers and
their loved ones, the Marshall Project and New York contacted more than 100
people around the city — immigrants, lawyers, and advocates. There was the
23-year-old undocumented Dominican woman from the Bronx who was detained on her
honeymoon in Niagara Falls. The Manhattan teenager too shaken to tell her best
friends that her father had been deported to Gambia. The bright middle-school
student in Harlem who suddenly disappeared; an aunt told the school that her
family had fled to Canada. “Palpable fear has just become part of their lives
at this point,” says Constance Bond, principal of St. hope Leadership Academy
Charter School in Harlem, about her students from immigrant families — as it
has for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. —Geraldine Sealey
Angelica Herrera De Leon, 23, Dominican Republic
“We married on September 15, 2017. My mom booked a trip for us to
Buffalo. Because of my status, we had to go by bus. We went to Niagara Falls on
the U.S. side. We had a wonderful weekend.
On our way back, we fell asleep, but then I realized the bus
wasn’t moving. I saw the driver inside the bus station with the border agents.
I knew that was it: They were getting on the bus. There were four agents. One
started asking everybody where they were from. When he came to us, I wasn’t
going to lie. I’m before God’s eyes. First, he asked my husband, and my husband
told him he was from the Dominican Republic and he was a resident. He took his
residence card. Then he said to me, ‘Are you here legally or not?’ He took my
Hostos [Community College] ID, which was the only ID I had with me, and also my
date of birth. I guess he had a little computer or something, and then he said
that we had to get off the bus.
Once I got off, he said, ‘Okay, this is what’s going to happen:
You’re going to be deported in the next two weeks.’ I told him I was married.
But he said he didn’t have anything on file, so that wasn’t going to help me.
Literally those words. My husband had already done his fingerprints for his
naturalization. He was only waiting for the exam. My husband was basically
freaking out. He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know where to go, he didn’t
know who to call. They say, ‘Oh, if you want to go back on the bus, you are
free to do so because you are legally here.’ But he said, ‘I’m not going to
leave my wife.’ He didn’t even speak, he just started crying.”
Status: Her deportation case is currently in court.
Edafe Okporo, 29, Nigeria
“I was working for LGBT people in Nigeria. I was found with a guy
I was having a relationship with. They broke into the apartment, dragged me out
into the street, and beat me.
I discovered that the United States grants asylum to gay men from
countries where being gay is criminalized. I had gotten a travel visa to attend
a conference in the U.S. When I arrived at JFK, I walked over to an Immigration
officer and said, ‘I am fearful for my life.’ I was put in handcuffs and thrown
in the back of a bus. I was ashamed of myself. People saw me in chains, even
people I took the same flight with. Maybe they thought I was a drug dealer or
criminal.
I didn’t know where they were taking me. There was a little window
at the back of the bus, but I was handcuffed at the waist and legs. The lights
on the George Washington Bridge were the only thing I could see.”
Status: He was ultimately granted asylum but says he is fearful
that any legal slipup could get him deported.
In April, ICE swept up 225 immigrants in the New York area during
a six-day operation, including this Mexican immigrant in Bushwick. At least 45
of those arrested had no outstanding criminal issue.
1. Rescinded DACA, barring those who were illegally brought to the
U.S. as children from receiving work permits; judges overturned the ban, at
least for now.
2. Rescinded the Temporary Protected Status program; immigrants
from Haiti, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador are losing their status and
must prepare to leave.
3. Reduced the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. to about
one-half of what it was in 2016.
4. Launched a denaturalization initiative aimed at those suspected
of having lied on their applications.
5. Disqualified victims of domestic violence and gang-related
violence for asylum.
6. Tripled the number of pages in green-card applications.
7. Increased red tape for employers hiring H-1B-visa candidates —
applications dropped 20 percent from 2016 to 2018.
8. Proposed a rule barring the spouses of H-1B-visa holders from
legally working.
9. Added security screenings for immigrants and those applying for
visas that have caused “significant and expensive delays,” according to one
immigration attorney.
Hawa Taboure, a U.S. citizen from Mali
Taboure took a training course through the organizations Witness
and the Urban Justice Center.
“If ICE knocks on your door, you have to ask them, ‘Where’s the
paper signed by the judge?,’ No. 1. No. 2: ‘Who are you looking for?’ If it’s
not you, it’s not an indication for you to open the door. If they get into your
house, you got a right to remain silent. I’ll tell them, ‘I’m not allowing you
to touch anything in my house.’ ”
As immigration arrests have increased, homemade videos have been
used to stay or throw out deportation orders, says Palika Makam, a program
coordinator for Witness.
→ Get several angles, both close-ups and wide-angle shots, and
capture local landmarks to corroborate details: street signs, clocks that show
the current time.
→ Focus your camera on the ICE agent, not the person being
arrested or detained. If you can’t, you can use the face-blurring tool on
YouTube.
→ Don’t narrate: anything said or learned about the person being
arrested or detained could be used against them in court. If you do feel
inclined to narrate, stick to objective facts.
→ Know your rights, but also know when not to use them. When a
jumpy ICE agent holding a Taser says to turn off your camera, sometimes it’s
best to listen. “No footage is ever worth your safety or the safety of the
person who you’re trying to protect by filming.”
→ Use at least a six-digit phone password, and don’t use touch ID,
because ICE can coerce you to unlock your phone with your fingerprint. And
always save at least one unedited copy of your footage in a secure place.
→ Plan when you share — and with whom. “Sharing videos after an
official ICE report or police report comes out can be huge, because it can help
highlight any lies or discrepancies. If you share right away, it could give law
enforcement the opportunity to change their story around the video.”
Joon Young Kim, 32, South Korea
“I stopped visiting a lot of places where a lot of the ICE agents
were coming, more predominantly busy areas of Hispanics or even Asians. I
stopped going to Flushing Main Street; I stopped going to Corona to have a bite
to eat. I saw some ICE agents in Penn Station. I actually stopped going to the
city just for the fear of that.”
Status: An undocumented Queens man who self-deported in May.
Antonio, 45, Mexico
“If other deliverymen tell me that ICE is grabbing people in an
area, I stay away. And I tell my boss not to send me there. I worry. But all I
can do is work.”
Status: An undocumented deliveryman at a restaurant in Queens.
Emma Medina, women’s-services coordinator at Voces Latinas in
Queens
“We have seen a decrease in the amount of calls from women in the
community. In some cases, husbands will threaten their wives with deportation
to exert power over them. Husbands will say that if they go to the authorities,
the family will be broken and it will be all the woman’s fault. That keeps the
abuse going.”
“He carries the lawyer’s card. I tell him, ‘Remember, if something
happens, you say nothing and tell them to call my lawyer.’ Those are the
conversations we’re having more now since this administration,” says Emilene
Rodriguez, whose Mexican husband is undocumented.
As grimly imperative as a will, this 22-page child-care safety
plan lays out the wishes of parents at risk of “administrative separation.”
Drafted by a coalition of California advocates, this and documents like it have
been circulating among immigrants’-rights groups nationwide.
By “Incapacitated,” I mean if, while I have any child or children
under the age of 18, I am:
(1) detained by law enforcement;
(2) incarcerated;
(3) deported or removed.
Perhaps the main purpose of the document is to keep children out
of foster care, wherein parental rights are often severed and kids run a higher
risk of eventual homelessness and incarceration. Parents who fail to plan in
advance might be cut out of custody proceedings; ICE is supposed to involve
them but isn’t required to.
If I am Incapacitated, I choose the following person (and
alternates) to be the Caregiver for my children …
Parents are advised to choose at least one person who is “stable,”
i.e., a documented person not terminally ill or involved in criminal activity
or planning to leave the area. This isn’t always easy. Once, when attorney
Miriam Stombler, who helped draft the document, was presenting the care plan to
an ESL class, a mother raised her hand to say she didn’t know anyone at all in
the U.S. “Two women in the class said, ‘Put me down,’ ” recalls Stombler. “And
they meant it.”
For your Designated Caregiver, box 36: Child’s Favorite Things.
“If your parent gets picked up by ICE, it lets the person who
picks you up from school that day know that chocolate is your favorite ice
cream, or your best friend is Amelia, or this is your comfort stuffed animal,”
says Stombler. “The idea was, How do we ease the discomfort for kids when their
parents are whisked away?”
Orange County Jail: Goshen, NY
798* detainees
Average length of stay: 107 days
Bergen County Jail: Hackensack, NJ
1,331 detainees
Average length of stay: 92 days
Hudson County Jail: Kearny, NJ
3,332 detainees
Average length of stay: 88 days
*Figures are totals from November 2016 to November 2017. TRAC,
Syracuse University.
Just some of the reported arrests since February 1, 2017.
1. 3 arrested in Highbridge
2. 28 arrested around Bronx County Criminal Court
3. 3 arrested in East Elmhurst
4. 13 arrested in Corona
5. 33 arrested around Queens County Criminal Court
6. 4 arrested in Ridgewood
7. 4 arrested in Bushwick
8. 43 arrested around Kings County Criminal Court
9. 24 arrested around New York County Criminal Court
10. 8 arrested around Richmond County Courthouse
Stats are from the Immigrant Defense Project.
Constance Bond, principal of St. Hope Leadership Academy
“We have a student who just disappeared one day, and the aunt
called to say that the mother, who was undocumented, went on the run with the
child. She was this lovely sixth-grade student whose whole life was upended
because ICE was making threats. We lost that girl; we lost that family. She was
really excelling academically.
We’ve had to train staff on what to do should an agent enter the
school. We’ve had parents not want to send their child on a field trip because
they’re worried ICE might enter the bus. And I have to be honest with you: I’m
not 100 percent sure that something couldn’t happen. During the election is
when I started to see increased stress levels in the kids, particularly in my
girls who wear hijabs. They felt like people were saying things to them. For
girls that are 11 and 12, that’s very scary.”
Risma Fadersair, 41, Indonesia
“They know Daddy went to work, and they asked, ‘Where is Daddy,
Mommy?’ And I said, ‘He is coming back.’ I wasn’t ready to tell them Daddy got
arrested. We don’t have a lawyer. My lawyer said, ‘I couldn’t help your husband
because the case is too complicated.’ And they gave me a pro bono list. So I
called them. And nobody responds. I finally found a private lawyer, but he
asked for the money first: $4,000. So I said to him, ‘Even, you can kill me, I
don’t have that much.’ We don’t have anybody to defend him. And only my husband
works. The income only from him. At home, my husband always takes care of them.
Without him, right now, it’s just my half missing. But the thing is, if I keep
mourning like this, how about my kids?”
Ivor: Sometimes when I see my dad in detention, to be honest, I
want to sneak out with him so he can be with us. But then, the Hudson County
detention people would be all, like, searching for him. That’s why I quit on
that idea. I also have this idea to get back on Donald Trump. If he wants to
arrest anyone, then I want to arrest his parents. Or him! So that’s what he
deserves! Also I’m kind of furious.
Dwight: I don’t want to move to Indonesia. The rules there are not
that good. And here the laws are not that good, too. That’s why I want the laws
to change, so it could be fair and everyone could be happy in the country.
Ivor: My brother wants to be the president so he can change the
laws.
Dwight: Maybe I could first be a lawyer, and then I could try to
be president.
Ivor: Yeah, that sometimes happens. I want to be a doctor so I can
take care of people, because I don’t really like it when people die or stuff.
Also, to tell you the truth, I got two honor rolls.
Status: Last September, Fadersair’s husband, Indra Sihotang, was
detained during a routine check-in and is being held in the Hudson County jail.
The couple has four sons under the age of 10, all U.S. citizens, including a
5-year-old with Down syndrome.
Shemar Pearce, 41, St. Lucia
“Hudson is like hell, hell like I wouldn’t want for nobody. It’s
full of detainees, but they treat you like you are a criminal, like you are a
murderer. Like you are the scum. There is one microwave, so there is always an
argument for the microwave. It’s always an argument for the phone. They give
you breakfast at 6:40, then ten o’clock is lunch, and four o’clock is dinner.
You have no utensils*, so they give you a tray with not even a complete meal.
It’s like, you wouldn’t even feed your dog that. Everything you have to buy.
Like, a plastic spoon is 20 cents with tax. A bottle of water is a dollar with
tax. If you want to buy a case of water, that’s $24. I was so depressed. There
were times I would be like, I just want to get out of here at any means. I
wanted to kill myself. I was telling my husband, ‘If I have to get out by a
body bag, I will get out.’ This is no place for nobody.”
Status: Detained by ICE in front of her kids, Pearce spent six
weeks this winter in a Hudson County jail.
*Hudson County jail says detainees are given “a utensil.”
Jasdeep Mangat, a physician who volunteers examining detainees
“My evaluation of their trauma is used by their lawyers in court.
When I examine them, there is a guard outside the door. I’m not allowed to take
pictures. Instead, I carry blank sheets of paper and a ruler to measure the
length and dimensions of their scars and wounds. I ask things like, ‘How many
weapons were used? How many times were you hit? Did you see the weapon? How
long was it?’
About a month ago, I evaluated a 30-year-old Honduran man who was
attacked with a machete by a gang that killed his brother in front of him. He
ended up having a scar on the right side of his scalp. The scar was not clean
cut; it was irregular and messy because he hadn’t gotten proper suturing
afterward. He would not only get beat up by gangs but also by the police. He
was also a victim of child abuse and was raped by a family friend. He started
trembling when he’d talk about it. He said to me, ‘Why can’t this life just
finish?’ ”
Anonymous, U.S. citizen whose father was deported to Gambia
“I was at work when my sister called, crying: ‘They took Daddy. He
went to his meeting with Immigration, and then they took him.’ My heart went
down to my stomach.
I told myself, He’s coming back. Three weeks, tops. We’ve gotta go
back-to-school shopping. I’m gonna be a senior. He needs to help with my
college applications. Then the lawyer sat me down: ‘This is not something like
he just comes home.’
After we went to the lawyers, we drove up to Jersey to see where
he was being held. In the car home, everybody was crying. I was like, ‘Mom, I’m
gonna sleep over at my friend’s house,’ and I went to a party. Usually I’m not
really a party person, but I was just screaming and stuff, dancing, laughing.
That was a way of me exerting it out. I was dreading going home. My dad’s chair
is right here; my chair is right there. At 11 o’clock, we watch Judge Judy.
That’s his favorite show — he loves her, and I hate her. He has this
intoxicating scent. I don’t know if it’s his cologne or his natural scent.
Going in the closet, smelling that — I laid on the bed and started crying.
My dad got deported on January 3, 2018. My friends don’t really
know. I don’t want them to see me in a vulnerable way. What hurts the most is
to think about the future. He’s never gonna see me walk down the aisle and
finally meet the guy who was enough for me. He’s never gonna see me in a
hospital room giving birth to my kid. I know I can always go visit him in
Africa. It’s not that he’s dead, but it’s just not the same. Here with my dad,
that’s where I belong. In the living room, watching Judge Judy.”
Nirna Pierre–Paul, 52, Haiti
Pierre-Paul came to Brooklyn from Haiti on a green card when she
was 7. She struggled with addiction and did several stints in jail. In 2009,
the government began trying to deport her. Sarah Gillman is an attorney with
the Legal Aid Society.
Nirna: My country had an earthquake [in 2010], so they decided
they were not sending Haitians back. For eight years, I have to report [to
ICE], like parole. I didn’t miss, not one day. I did everything right. The day
before I went this year, I had a nightmare that they kept me, and they did.
They said, “You’re being detained.” Then they put me in handcuffs. But I had
called my sister and told her, “Call Sarah Gillman.” She was my lawyer before.
Sarah: We filed a habeas petition arguing that they shouldn’t have
been permitted to just take her into custody without any prior notice and
revoke her order of supervision. In court that night, the judge asked the
government attorney, “Why did you detain her?” I was quite shocked listening to
this. He said, “Well, I just had to detain her because of operational
procedures that have to be followed.” So basically they detained a human being
who has multiple medical issues, had no support, was living for a long time in New
York without any problems, because they had to do something operationally. For
lack of a more articulate or sophisticated way of saying it, I think they’ve
been chomping at the bit to do this and now they have the license. That night I
called her older sister.
Nirna: Maud.
Sarah: I said, “Could I just ask you again about the family
situation?” So their mom has dementia. She started to decline like three years
ago, and from what I understand, they started going through the mom’s
paperwork.
Nirna: She had documents that my mother was a citizen.
Sarah: So, under the law, we were able to argue that Nirna derived
citizenship through her mom. We sent an email to the federal attorneys, and
then Friday around five, we get an email from the government attorneys agreeing
to release Nirna. She was on the phone hysterically crying with me as I was
trying to explain to her that it’s okay, I’m coming to get you.
Nirna: After I got off the phone, people were just hugging me.
People that didn’t even talk to me in there, just hugging me.
Ivy Teng Lei, 27, China
“My work permit through DACA expires in March 2019. In the last
months, DACA was rescinded and no applications were being accepted. Then a
federal court struck down the White House decision to rescind it, and they
started accepting existing application renewals. The volatility of it all is
just so mentally draining. Even my friends will ask things like, ‘So are you
still going to be deported?’ And I’m like, ‘Dude, I don’t know!’ ”
• Small religious items
• Reading material and letters
• Legal documents
• Up to ten photos
• Eyeglasses
• Dentures
• A personal address book
• A wedding ring
Pau, Guatemala
Day 1: Eloy, Arizona
It was just after dawn when Pau discovered her bond had been paid.
She’d spent five weeks in immigration detention worrying about her 15-year-old
daughter, whom she’d last seen a few days after they’d been picked up by ICE
agents at the border in June. Pau had prayed every day. After she passed her
“credible fear” interview, her bond had been set at $15,000. It might as well
have been a million. She had no way to raise that kind of money, so she prayed
some more.
Her benefactors, she’d eventually learn, were a group of mothers
from New York called Immigrant Families Together. A few days before, they’d
bailed out her friend Yeni, and now Pau and another woman —all three part of
what Pau called her propia familia in detention. When they were released after
dark, a woman was waiting for them — a stranger. She handed Pau a cell phone,
and Yeni was on the line. “These are good people,” Yeni said. “You can trust
them.” The woman dropped Pau and her friend at a hotel in Phoenix. It was the
first time in weeks Pau slept through the night.
Day 2: Arizona to Colorado
A man named Kyle arrived at the hotel early the next morning and
introduced himself as “el chofer,” part of the network of volunteers who’d
banded together to help parents like Pau reach their children. For the next six
hours, Pau rode in the back of the car with her fellow detainee. Then, in a
Starbucks parking lot, they met new drivers, and their paths diverged. The two
women hugged and told each other to be brave, to keep going for the sake of their
children. Back in the car, Pau cried at everything, even when she ate a banana
— her daughter loves bananas.
They drove out of New Mexico and into Colorado, where she switched
cars again. That night she slept in Aurora.
Day 3: Colorado to Chicago
They drove into Nebraska, where she met her next driver, Brian, a
six-foot-four man with a beard who spoke no Spanish. In some ways, not being
able to speak was a relief.
Pau’s husband was already in New York, working construction and
saving money by living dormitory style with other men. It had been eight years
since he’d left home; Pau talked to him every day over WhatsApp. She wanted to
reunite her family, but most of all she wanted her daughter to be safe. Her
hometown in Guatemala was too dangerous for a skinny teenage girl.
Day 4: Chicago to Pittsburgh
The closer Pau got to New York, the more anxious she felt to just
get there. At a midday stop in Ann Arbor, she used the bathroom, then declined
the offer to rest. She just wanted to get back in the car.
Pau slept and woke up, and ripped a napkin to shreds as she told
her story, again: how the guards had taunted her and told her she was going to
be deported the next day, how they yelled “Stop crying!” and “This is all your
fault!” But nothing compared, she said, to the pain of watching her daughter
sob as she was being taken away. Pau was drying tears from her eyes when the
city of Pittsburgh appeared in front of her at sunset, water and bridges
gleaming. The family waiting for her had made Mexican-style chicken soup.
Day 5: Pittsburgh to New York City
Pau did not cry all morning. But when she saw the Manhattan
skyline, she sobbed and thanked God. She sobbed as her driver negotiated the
city streets. She borrowed a phone to call her daughter, who’d been released to
her father a week earlier. “Don’t worry, Mama,” her daughter said. “Everything
is going to be okay. You’re here.”
Status: Living in Queens with her husband and daughter.
Many immigrants being processed for detention are first held at a
federal building on Varick Street, where one Trinidadian immigrant who has
lived in New York since 1976 found himself in winter 2016.
“I was making $18 an hour.” c. 1985
“I’m bringing in all the blocks and the mortar, building the
scaffolds. The glaze blocks that they got in the cell, after you strike them up
if you don’t clean it, the mortar get hardened and it would be very hard to
clean it off. You take a wet rag and wipe it down. I did all of that.”
“I was going to work.” December 7, 2016
“I’m walking up the hill, I’m walking to the train station, and an
SUV and three cars just surrounded meI thought it was the police first of all,
but I know I didn’t commit no crime. I said, ‘What did I do?’ And he said to
me, ‘ICE immigration.’ ”
“They locked me up.” Hours later…
“I’m walking past in handcuffs from my hips down to my feet in a
place that I worked on, I’m locked up in that place. I see one guy been in
there that he won his case but his lawyer made some kind of mistake and he was
still sitting in there when I left. And he been in there over a year, you
understand what I’m saying?”
Status: He was transferred to Hudson County Correctional Facility
and was released ten months later. He has since won a cancellation of removal.
Jean Montrevil, 49, Haiti
“They had a plan to deport me on the 16th of January, even though
my case was still pending in court. I thought it was a mistake. They took me to
Newark. Two days later, I got transferred to Miami. I stayed there for ten
days. They called me to go downstairs; we had to sleep on the floor of the
shelter. They gave me the money I have in the account. They gave me two months
of medication. And I didn’t have no clothes — they had to find some jumpsuits
and some pajamas. Then, early in the morning, they woke me up, at maybe four
o’clock. We were shackled, put on a bus, and driven to an airfield. The only
time they unshackled you was after the plane landed.
Now I have to start my life all over again. If you’re going to
deport someone, give them a chance to make arrangements. I would have sent my
clothes down here. They just deport us like we’re freaking animals. Who loses
now? Only my kids. My son was doing so well in school; now he’s not. He’s only
14 years old. My daughter, she’s 11 years old. She’s getting emotional now.
That’s what worries me, man.”
Status: He was deported in January after having been in the United
States since 1986.
“Years ago, we came up with an emergency plan,” says Montrevil, in
case he got deported. “That plan saved my life.”
1. “The lawyer gets the first call when I get in custody.”
2. “Then the family members.”
3. “Then the church.”
4. “When you get deported to Haiti [and] you don’t have any family
picking you up, they assume it was because of a crime and you’re going straight
to jail. That was my biggest fear. I don’t think I could last one day in jail
here. My friend got deported 20 years ago himself. My family knew to call him in
Haiti to pick me up.”
Javier Garrido, 30, and William Garrido, 4, Honduras
In July, after a court order required the Trump administration to
reunite families who had been separated at the border, ICE agents drove a few
dads to the city from the Hudson County Correctional Facility to reunite them
with their children who had been placed in shelters in New York.
Javier Garrido, a Honduran immigrant, was one of them. His only
child, 4-year-old William, had been taken from him at the Texas border 55 days earlier.
While Garrido shuttled between detention facilities in Texas, Georgia, and New
Jersey, with no idea where his son was, William had been flown to New York,
placed in a children’s shelter, and then with a foster family. At one point, an
officer had told Garrido that the boy would likely get adopted. “I was always
the one who fed him. I was the one who bathed him,” Garrido says. “How were
strangers caring for him? Who told him stories and rocked him to sleep?”
When he and William rushed into each other’s arms that afternoon,
“I fell to my knees,” Garrido says. “It was the happiest moment of my life.”
Hours later, William, no more than 40 pounds and snacking on Doritos, kissed
his father’s neck a dozen times, paused, then pecked him several times again.
“He’s missed a lot of naps,” Garrido says, gazing through the window of a
Morningside Heights social-services office at the distant Empire State
Building.
The next day, father and son boarded a flight to Louisiana to stay
with an aunt and uncle. But their future is uncertain: Garrido, who was fitted
with an ankle monitor, may have been put on a faster track for deportation
without his asylum claim being fully vetted, says an advocate at Catholic
Charities who reviewed his case. Garrido’s priority had been reuniting with
William.
José, 19, Honduras
In August 2016, 17-year-old José traveled to the U.S. from
Honduras with a friend and a cousin. The journey took two months.
“I went through so much to get here. I saw mutilated bodies. I was
robbed by cops in Guatemala and beaten by sicarios. I ran through deserts and
jumped on trains so big and loud I thought my heart would jump out of my chest.
Many people died on those trains.”
After being apprehended by U.S. Immigration officials, José was
taken to a children’s shelter in New York City.
“In the children’s home, I was treated very well. They were
caring. They’d take us out to the city to eat doughnuts, to McDonald’s, to
play. To church. To the pool.”
Two months later, on the morning of his 18th birthday, ICE
arrested him and took him to a county jail in New Jersey.
“My friends didn’t see it happen because it was early in the
morning. I was crying; my social worker was crying. I was treated like a criminal.
You know the jumpsuits that criminals wear on TV? That’s what they put on me.”
Brooklyn Defender Services took his case, and he was released in
March 2017 after four months.
“My last day in the jail, people cheered. Everyone knows how hard
it is to get to this country. They gave me hugs, tears in their eyes. When I
got out, I was so nervous. I wasn’t used to being outside anymore.”
José’s immigration case is pending, but his lawyers say new
changes to the rules are making it harder for immigrants who arrived as
unaccompanied minors, aged out, and are now treated like undocumented adults to
stay in the United States. But José is optimistic. These days, he lives in
Manhattan with his sponsor.
“Things got dark for me, but then they started getting better.
Everything is calm at home; [my sponsor] has a family. She works a lot. In the
morning, we eat a traditional breakfast, coffee and rolls. I really like riding
my bike around the city. I went to the Statue of Liberty a few months ago, and
I try to go to Central Park often. But there are still more places I want to
see. I have never been to a zoo, for example. Or on one of those boats that go
around the city. I play soccer in Queens from Monday to Saturday. I play
midfield. I also take English classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And I go to
therapy. I started reading a book about the history of Martin Luther King Jr. I
am not done, but he seems like a brave person.”
Joon Young Kim, 32, South Korea
“When I realized about my immigration status, I was around 17.
There’s a mandatory requirement that we have to serve in the South Korean
military. There was paperwork to defer it, but my mother, I guess, she didn’t
apply for it. I got stuck in this weird limbo: I couldn’t apply for a green card in the U.S. without an active visa. But if I go back to Korea, I’m going
to be jailed. I was a man with no country.
At the end of March, I decided I’m going back to Korea. I hired a
lawyer in Korea, and he got me out of the military jail time. I felt this huge
relief. I’m going to go serve in the army. I lived in the shadows long enough.
[President Trump] did play into my decision-making. It’s made it harder for
people like me to get status.
In Korea, you come to America for a better life, you come for a
dream. I’m going back for a better life, which to me sounds pretty outrageous,
but it is the best choice, I think, for my future. I’m taking a small duffel
bag filled with a couple of shirts, pants, a toothbrush, $500 equivalent in
Korean currency. And a dream.”
Status: After 25 years in the U.S., he returned to South Korea in
May.
Youngmin Lo, 35, South Korea
“As an undocumented person, for a long time I felt guilt and shame
about who I was. But when we decided to become [part of a] sanctuary-church
network, the church asked if I wanted to share my story with other people. I
decided to speak publicly. I do know there are people who may have the same
fear that I had, and they want to hide from everything that’s going on. But if
I don’t share my story, it means not only that I lose my opportunity to speak
up but we’re losing together. If anything happens to me and my family, it will
really hurt me and break my heart. But if that’s the cost that has to be made,
I think I’m willing to do that. We cannot just constantly live in fear. The
fear is what keeps us back.”
Status: Undocumented pastor in Queens.
This story was published in partnership with The Marshall Project,
a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign
up for their newsletter, or follow The Marshall Project on Facebook or Twitter.
Reporting by Andrew R. Calderon, Maurice Chammah, Eli Hager,
Lauren Hilgers, Kathryn Joyce, Jordan Larson, Mustafa Z. Mirza, Julia Preston,
Alysia Santo, Nick Tabor, Christie Thompson, Manuel Villa, and Simone
Weichselbaum.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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