deportation Archives - Mississippi Catholic

By Maureen Smith
JACKSON – Pastors, attorneys, immigrants and immigrants’ advocates gathered at City Hall Wednesday, March 1, to express their concerns about recent immigration raids, seek dialogue with law enforcement representatives and invite the community at large to attend a forum to discuss the contributions immigrants make to Mississippi.
Immediately after the news conference, one of the immigrants who spoke at it was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Daniela Vargas speaks at a press conference on the steps of the Jackson City Hall. Vargas spoke as a DACA recipient whose father and brother face possible deportation. Immediately after the news conference, federal officers took her into custody. (Photo by Tereza Ma.)

Daniela Vargas is a 22-year-old Argentine native, but America is the only home she has ever known. She was covered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but those applications have to be renewed every two years. She reapplied late because she had trouble getting together the money for the application, so her coverage had lapsed. The car in which she was riding was pulled over by federal agents as she left.
This was not her first run-in with ICE. Agents arrested her father and brother at her home earlier this year while she hid in a closet. ICE agents eventually raided the house and detained her for a short time, but released her when she indicated that she had reapplied for DACA. Her father and brother are awaiting deportation hearings.
“When I was seven-years-old my parents sacrificed everything they had ever known to bring my brother and I into the country to establish a better lifestyle. Both my parents began working in poultry plants where most days the cold was unbearable,” she said at the news conference. “Knowing that they were making this sacrifice for us, I put in all my efforts into my education and my talents. I dream of being a university math professor, but now I am not so sure my dream will develop,” Vargas added.
Nathan Elmore represents Vargas. He said her case is a complicated one, but he knows ICE has discretion in its cases and he hopes agents will exercise it. Vargas, he pointed out, does not fall under the ‘priority deportations’ outlined by the Trump administration. She has no criminal record, she is eligible for a DACA renewal and she was not committing a crime when she was picked up.
Bishop Joseph Kopacz wrote a letter in support of Vargas saying, “Some have expressed grave concern at every level of government and society that DACA recipients may be especially vulnerable in the transition from one administration to the next, but President Trump has stated that he will honor the status of all DACA recipients. I would hope that local branches of our Immigration and Customs Service will uphold the letter and spirit of the law with respect to the legal status of DACA recipients.”
ICE executed a series of raids in the state Wednesday, Feb. 22, detaining 55 people, according to the Clarion-Ledger. The raids targeted Asian restaurants in Jackson, Flowood, Pearl and Meridian and officials said they were the result of a yearlong investigation and not part of any new effort to round up undocumented immigrants.
Elmore is also representing some of the people being detained in the restaurant raids. He said he has been searching the court database to find out if his clients have been charged or appeared before a judge, but even a week after the raid, he can find no record of them anywhere.
Elmore said the current atmosphere in the immigrant community is one of fear, especially among families with children. “This weekend me and several members of my law firm went to Morton, Mississippi, where we did an outreach event where we talked to people just like Daniela. These folks were scared. They’re worried that ‘what if I get picked up, who’s going to take care of my child?’ That was the number one question that we faced as we talked to these people … and that’s a hard question for me to answer for them,” he said.

Amelia McGowan, attorney for the Catholic Charities

Amelia McGowan, attorney for the Catholic Charities Migrant Resource Center, echoed that sentiment. “Often a topic that goes undiscussed (is that) many immigrants who come to the United States – documented or undocumented – do have U.S. citizen children, or perhaps who are not citizens, but who have lived their entire lives here in the United States. Forced immigration raids not only puts the children in immediate danger of potentially removing their parents, removing their caregivers from the United States, but it also places them in a constant state of fear, which can re-traumatize them if they have suffered a traumatic past from their home countries,” said McGowan.
Redemptorist Father Michael McAndrew agrees. He has been advocating for immigrant families across the U.S. for almost three decades. Today, he is part of a Redemptorist community in Greenwood, Miss., serving the Hispanic community throughout the Mississippi Delta. He pointed out that deportation is more complicated than it may seem when children are involved.
“Of course, immigration law states that citizen children can remain in this country, but the rights of children must protect more than just the children’s right to be here. A more important right of the child is to be raised by his or her parents when their parents are not abusive or doing harm to them,” said Father McAndrew.
The last speaker, Jim Evans, president of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance (MIRA), brought the gospel to bear in his challenge to state leaders and members of the faith community. “The gospel of Jesus Christ speaks to these suffering in our midst – not as who they are but as who we are and how we attend to them don’t establish who they are, but it makes it clear and reveals who we are,” he said.
The news conference was organized by the Latin American Business Association, ONE Church and MIRA. The group still hopes to host a community forum to showcase the contributions immigrants make to Mississippi and open a dialogue with local law enforcement departments. The forum is set for Tuesday, April 11, at 6 p.m., at Fondren Church on State Street in Jackson.

Immigration News Conference 2017

By Carol Zimmermann
WASHINGTON (CNS) – With a tie vote June 23, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Obama administration’s plan to temporarily protect more than 4 million unauthorized immigrants from deportation.
The court’s 4-4 vote leaves in place a lower court injunction blocking the administration’s immigration policy with the one-page opinion stating: “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court.”
Legal experts have called it an ambiguous and confusing political and legal decision that leaves many in a state of limbo. It also puts a lot of attention on the vacant Supreme Court seat that may determine how the case is decided in an appeal.
Religious leaders were quick to denounce the court’s action as a setback for immigrant families and stressed the urgency of comprehensive immigration reform.
Seattle Auxiliary Bishop Eusebio L. Elizondo, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Migration, said the court’s decision was a “huge disappointment” and a setback, but he said the focus now needs to be on how to fix the current immigration system.
“We must not lose hope that reform is possible,” he said. In a news briefing, President Barack Obama said the country’s immigration system is broken and the Supreme Court’s inability to reach a decision set it back even further.
House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin praised the court’s decision for making clear that “the president is not permitted to write laws – only Congress is,” which he said was a “major victory in our fight to restore the separation of powers.”
At issue in the United States v. Texas case are Obama’s executive actions on immigration policy that were challenged by 26 states.
The Texas Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state’s Catholic bishops, said in a statement that “respect for human life and dignity demands leaders put people before politics.” Added Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston: “Our legislators continuously refuse to address immigration policies in a comprehensive manner.”
“I am deeply disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision … putting millions of families at risk of being ripped apart,” said Dominican Sister Bernardine Karge of Chicago, speaking for the Washington-based group Faith in Public Life.
“The stories of immigrant families are intimately woven into the tapestry of this great country, and today’s decision threatens our nation’s commitment to justice and compassion,” she said, adding that she hoped the presumptive presidential nominees and Congress makes comprehensive immigration reform a priority.
Jeanne Atkinson, executive director of Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. or CLINIC, similarly expressed disappointment in the court’s decision and said the responsibility is more than ever on Congress to come up with comprehensive immigration reform.
She said the court’s decision will put “millions of long-term U.S. residents in fear of law enforcement and at risk of mistreatment in the workplace, by landlords and from abusers due to threats of deportation.”
The case, argued before the court in April, involved Obama’s 2014 expansion of a 2012 program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and creation of the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, known as DAPA.
The programs had been put on hold last November by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, upholding a Texas-based federal judge’s injunction against the executive actions. The original DACA program is not affected by the injunction.
The states suing the federal government claimed the president went too far and was not just putting a temporary block on deportations, but giving immigrants in the country without legal permission a “lawful presence” that enabled them to qualify for Social Security and Medicare benefits.
U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who defended the government, said the “pressing human concern” was to avoid breaking up families of U.S. citizen children, something echoed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, CLINIC, and at least three Catholic colleges, which joined in a brief with more than 75 education and children’s advocacy organizations.
When the case was argued before the high court in mid-April, Justice Sonia Sotomayor stressed that the 4 million immigrants who might be given a temporary reprieve from deportation “are living in the shadows” and “are here whether we want them or not,” adding that the government had limited resources available for deportations.
(Follow Zimmermann on Twitter: @carolmaczim.)

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Tag Archives: deportation

Immigrant – detained after public appearance faces unclear future

Supreme Court tie vote blocks temporary plan to stop deportations