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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Deported migrant contests policy Deported migrant contests policy Woman had legal right to stay, attorney says Daniel González The Arizona Republic May. 1, 2007 12:00 AM A Glendale woman who had been living unlawfully in the United States for two decades is waging a court battle to re-enter the country after she was summarily deported in February. Sylvia Uribe-Reyna's case could help other undocumented immigrants remain in the country. If successful, the case would curtail the federal government's efforts to quickly deport thousands of foreign nationals without court hearings. The practice is known as expedited removal. The tactic is considered a key tool in securing the nation's borders. Department of Homeland Security officials say it prevents illegal immigrants with no legal right to stay in the country from exploiting the nation's immigration system. In the past, such immigrants were routinely released pending court hearings, and most simply disappeared into the United States. advertisement But lawyers representing Uribe say the practice was never intended to apply to longtime residents of the United States such as her. Although the Sonora native had lived in this country with no legal status for more than 22 years, she is eligible for a green card because her Mexican husband is a legal permanent resident. Their three children also are U.S. citizens. What's more, Uribe's case illustrates a common problem with expedited removal, her lawyers say. Untold numbers of immigrants who may have a legal right to remain in the U.S. are being summarily deported without getting a chance to have their cases heard in court. The practice deprives immigrants of their rights under U.S. immigration laws and the Constitution, said Jennifer Chang, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project. System criticized Uribe, 40, was placed in expedited removal after she tried to re-enter the U.S. through the Nogales port of entry using a fraudulent driver's license. She had driven to Sonora with her family to visit her grandmother. In March, the ACLU filed an appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals challenging Uribe's deportation and the government's ability to deport non-citizens without judicial hearings. Ordinarily, only an immigration judge can order someone deported, but expedited removal gives low-level immigration officers and Border Patrol agents the authority to remove certain foreign nationals. "That's happening because (the government is) incorporating a one-size-fits-all approach to our immigration problems and failing to recognize that our immigration laws allow room to address individual circumstances like Sylvia's," said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona. Federal officials disagree. Expedited removal allows the government to swiftly deport undocumented immigrants without judicial hearings unless they demonstrate a credible fear of returning to their country. Since the system was created in 1996 and expanded in 2004, expedited removal has become a "vitally important" tool in Homeland Security's effort to secure the nation's borders, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The system still protects people seeking refuge, she said. "If taken away, it would not only overwhelm the immigration system, it would precipitate a surge in illegal immigration," Kice said. Removed from the U.S. Uribe's troubles began in December, when she decided to make a trip to Sonora along with her husband, Adolfo Huerta, and their 10-year-old son, Adolfo. Uribe's husband, a legal permanent resident, and her son, a U.S. citizen, had no difficulties returning to the United States. But a port official became suspicious when the name on the Arizona driver's license Uribe presented did not match the mother's name on her son's birth certificate. The driver's license turned out to be fraudulent. Customs and Border Protection officials charged Uribe with making a false claim to citizenship, which could have led to Uribe being permanently barred from re-entering the U.S. Instead, she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense of fraud and spent 60 days in jail. Meanwhile, Uribe's lawyers tried to stop the deportation. They filed a lawsuit in federal District Court in Tucson, arguing that Uribe should not be subjected to expedited removal because she was eligible to remain in the U.S. legally for two reasons: First, she had lived in the country for at least 10 years, and her deportation would place "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" on her U.S. citizen children and legal permanent resident husband. Second, she was eligible for legal permanent residence because her husband had petitioned for her in 1993, though they never completed the process. "I don't think there is any legitimate purpose being served by separating her from her family," Soler Meetze said. A federal judge, however, ruled that the court lacked jurisdiction over the matter. Early in the morning on Feb. 6, ICE officials drove Uribe to the border and deported her to Nogales, Sonora, where she remains. Kice, the ICE spokeswoman, said the agency does not comment on cases involving pending litigation. Setting precedent Mark Hetfield, an expert on expedited removal at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Societyin New York, said Uribe's appeal could have "enormous impact," if successful. "It would make it much easier (for undocumented immigrants) to get court review, and it would apply to anyone whether they are arriving at the border or a port of entry," he said. Hetfield was a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. In a 2005 study ordered by Congress, the commission found flaws in the way the government was implementing expedited removal, namely, that immigration officials did not routinely follow rules designed to prevent people from being deported to countries where they could face persecution. In an update released in February, the commission found that little improvement had been made. Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that favors greater restrictions on immigration, said expedited removal may have problems but should not be eliminated. Expedited removal helps the government "weed out" frivolous claims to remain in the United States so that the government can focus on legitimate claims, he said. Meanwhile, Uribe remains in Mexico, awaiting the outcome of her court appeal. If her appeal is denied, her husband and children in Glendale face a difficult choice: long-term separation or moving to Mexico.
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I agree with Ronald Reagan who thought that we should have iron-clad policies to stop new illegal immigrants, but that people who've been here for a while and have roots here should be allowed to stay and become citizens too. This woman has been here for 20 years. She has a husband and children here. We presume that they are legal residents. She's been separated from them. It is not right IMHO. All of the illegal residents face the threat that this type of thing could happen to them. Yet it actually does happen to only a small percentage of them. This is a means of alienating them but letting them stay. This balkanizes us. The rage against the white majority builds. and in time in places like Arizona & SoCal the mexican immigrants will be the majority. and they will want to punish us. The government that wanted to punish this woman so badly is the same government that allowed her to come. It is the same government allowing others to come every day. They don't even go through the payroll data reported each week for the sake of collecting the payroll tax from employers to determine who the employers have hired that are illegal and tell the employers to let them go. New employees that are illegal should not be allowed. But they are allowed if they merely acquire fake documentation. But the fake documentation can easily be identified as being fake by checking the source who issued the document. Yet the employers are not required to do this. They should be and they should be barred from hiring such people. Our own government's policies are designed to let them in. and then to alienate them. a little child grew up in America and had his mother taken away by the government.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
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