'Freedom to say goodbye' — Judge says Trump immigrant deportations resemble 'regimes we revile'

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/01/29/freedom-to-say-goodbye.html

7 Likes

Chief about the right to say goodbye should be our right to say goodbye to the vile orange bastard in the whitehouse… Goodbye and good riddance you foul blight on humanity.

14 Likes

Perhaps I’m missing something, but if his deportation was ordered in 2006, hasn’t he had 12 years to “say goodbye”? That’s great that he’s an activist, but I feel the more accurate headline would be ‘convicted felon deported 12 years after original order’, right? This doesn’t feel like a ‘blame Trump’ thing, the guy was convicted in the Dubya years and just… hung around for the next decade, waiting for the hammer to drop apparently.

1 Like

What you are missing is that he had a reprieve from being deported that required him to go to have regular ‘check-ins’ with ICE. It is when he shows up at that meeting that he gets arrested and put on a plane.

You can disagree with the reprieve, or you can agree that it shouldn’t have been extended, but given that he was coming to his appointments and otherwise following the rules of his reprieve, basic human decency would say that, if he is going to be deported, ICE should inform him that the reprieve has not been granted and he should report at Time and Place for deportation.

Often that is how it is done for jail even - you get convicted, you get sentenced, you get told when to report to jail.

If you don’t show up at the appointed time and place, then it becomes a different story.

27 Likes

Ahh, most excellent, I wasn’t super clear on that point. Thank you for the clarification! Alrighty then, snark retracted - dude was following the rules, and the gov’t changed the rules out from under him. Eff 'em then, right in the ear-holes.

13 Likes

I don’t know what he did - and served time for - but he’s married to an American citizen and he’s lived here productively for many years serving the immigrant community as an activist. Plus, according to his wife’s article in the NY Times, the Trump administration appears to be politically targeting activist immigrants for deportation which is unconstitutional. They are supposed to prioritizing and finding people who are truly dangerous criminals - rapists and murderers, as per Dumpity’s big show on the campaign trail with people who said family members were murdered or assaulted by undocumented immigrants.

That being said, I’m not understanding why his wife is so terrified (in her article) about him being sent (back) to Trinidad. I don’t know much about Trinidad, but from what I’ve read, it sounds like a very nice little country in a beautiful area with a parliamentary democracy (which I’m understanding work better than ours), a liberal government, universal healthcare, free prescription drugs, too, for its citizens. She could most likely and easily follow him there, if they so chose. Hey, I wouldn’t mind living there myself, given their healthcare system, great food and climate, warm and welcoming culture (what I’m reading, at least).

So what is the story here?

I agree this man should have citizenship- but this isn’t like sending someone off to Somalia (as in some cases) with a dysfunctional government and people arriving in the airport and literally being killed before they can even hail a cab; i.e. because the situation is so violent. Which is something that was being done under either Bush or Obama or both … I can’t remember when I read about it.

In short, however, he is not a refugee, as far as I am understanding.

But again, I do think he should be given citizenship and allowed to go on with his life. It is not right what the Trump administration is doing. Meanwhile, as they throw out activists, they are probably fast-tracking citizenship and green cards for Nazis in their Nazis-Without-Borders program.

1 Like

Interesting case, at least what I can learn of it. As I understand the facts of the case,
He entered the US in 1991 on a visitor’s visa
He was granted a green card in 1994
He was convicted of felony wire fraud in 2001, and served five years in prison
In 2006, he was ordered deported (fraud related felonies are among those that make a person deportable), and held in custody by ICE
In 2008, he was allowed out on an “order of supervision”, where the subject is released from physical custody until removal is processed
In 2011, he was issued a temporary stay of removal.
Last year, an article was published in the Observer about him facing this possibility when he filed for a new deferral. http://observer.com/2017/03/trinidadian-activist-avoids-deportation/
A stay of removal normally allows deportation to be delayed for a period of time “when an appeal, a motion to reopen, or a motion to reconsider is pending before the board”. If there are no pending grounds to issue another deferral, deportation is initiated.
It seems like there was little question that he was going to be deported once all the appeals were exhausted. Deferral is a postponement, not a reversal.

But the system seems to really have issues. It sort of makes sense that after all the appeals and deferrals are exhausted, you have to go. But it is sort of like the Dread Pirate Roberts saying that he will probably kill you tomorrow.

Yeah, I really don’t see any reason for sympathy. Final removal order over a decade ago. Convicted felon. It’s crazy that he was given a reprieve under such circumstances. He should have used the past 12 years to organize his affairs and say goodbye. Why do we want convicted felons to stay here? Citizenship or residents opportunities are a scare resource, and I would like to see those slots go only to the best and most desirable, not to anyone with a felony conviction.

yea, cuz someone who has willfully defied a legal order to leave the country as a convicted felon will totally be honest and not go into hiding after being told “hey man, this last one is serious, like serious!” Pathetic judge.

Ravi Ragbir’s story was covered in this week’s Intercepted podcast.

The most relevant bit of the transcript is this:

Full transcript at the podcast link.

1 Like

how so? only because we make them so. it’s well known that immigrants by and large add to the economic output of the us, they don’t decrease it.

and while i don’t feel that money is the sole measure of a person, there’s really no reason not to have people here who are able to add to our common wealth.

the whole point of serving time is that you receive your punishment and you do better.
if it’s not possible to rehabilitate people then why do we bother? why not make all sentences life sentences and be done with it?

do i think that people in this category should just be blindly allowed to become citizens? of course, not – but a clear path for people who lack documents to become citizens will actually help keep them on the straight and narrow.

people forget that we created this problem by not having good migrant worker visas in the first place and by not ever cracking down on the employers who are hiring those workers.

( and more over – not just cracking down – but actually encouraging those employers by allowing them to pay sub-par wages, by allowing them to avoid paying employee taxes, by allowing them to avoid safety regulations, overtime pay, etc. )

we allowed this situation to happen, and now we have a responsibility to the people who are here. especially those who are playing by the rules.

4 Likes
4 Likes

Agreed. There was little question he was going to be deported. The judge took issue with the summary manner in which it was effected (detention, uncertain timeline etc) … it was cruel and unusual (you know, I think that concept is one of the finest things you guys have given the world - it’s a really good starting point for understanding exceptional power) and beyond the remit of an ordered, structured approach to deportation.

4 Likes

Eh, if people who have just been convicted of a crime are given time to show up at jail on their own, I’m not too worried about someone who has been doing all he is asked to do for the last 12 years, is well integrated into his community, has a wife and family who would suffer from being in hiding, etc, etc, etc.

ETA: Welcome to BoingBoing, Bob_Smith1!

2 Likes

One way to estimate how many people would like to move here is to look at how many people apply for the diversity lottery. According to Wiki, 20 million people apply for the diversity lottery every year, and that program excludes the two biggest countries in the world (India and China). If Chinese and Indians could also apply for the diversity lottery, it might easily be 40 million people per year. If people knew their visas would be approved, the number would also be higher. So let’s say that if we had easy immigration here, we would likely get at least 40 million a year new arrivals, based on very conservative extrapolation from current diversity lottery facts.

Most of these people are poor, uneducated, and don’t speak English. They will become and immediate burden on our system, as our economy doesn’t pay much to poor, uneducated, non-English-speaking people. They can only live with subsidized health care, housing, and food. And that’s 20 million a year applicants. That means building an entire new state of California, every two years, filled with poor uneducated people who need a variety of support programs.

No, we can’t do that. No one can. California already can’t take care of its poor and uneducated. There are a limited number of slots available for people to come here.

Looking at another data point, “extreme poverty” is defined as living at less than $1.25 per day, and there are over a billion people in the world in such “extreme poverty”. It’s reasonable to think many of them would want to come here for our welfare programs. We provide free health care, food, and some amount of housing.

We can’t provide our safety net, however deficient it may be, to the billions of poor, uneducated, and needy in the world.

Judge says Drumpf immigrant deportations resemble ‘regimes we revile’

Perhaps the “president” doesn’t want immigrants from “sh*thole countries” because he wants to turn the U.S. into one without any outside help.

2 Likes

Why on earth would you assume that the number of people who apply annually is likely to be anything like the annual rate? People apply each year and once they migrate they have done it. Your number would be an estimate that most global immigration would come to the US, given that a lot of migration is things like movement within the EU I consider that incredibly unlikely. www.global-migration.info/VID_Global_Migration_Datasheet_web.pdf

1 Like

The part htat angers me is they arrested him when he showed up for a checkin as if he were a bail jumper. I mean yea congradufrakkinglations on ‘trapping’ someone who came in expecting a civil checkin with ICE and oh hey bro you’re under arrest.

I mean if the guy is going to get deported, fine. However he’s someone that apparently has been following the rules so a low flight risk. It really does smell like activists are being targeted for removal.

Challenge: Describe the GOP platform in eight words or less.

9 Likes

don’t worry. i don’t even think we have the technology to move that many people at once. your worst fears are thus deftly avoided.

4 Likes