Immigration
Innocent and Deported
Published November 05, 2009 @ 04:35PM PT
I've got bad news to share. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the case of cousins Julio Maldonado and Denis Calderon. Unfortunately, I came to the story too late. The day after I wrote, Maldonado was deported to Peru -- a country he left when he was three. He doesn't speak Spanish and found housing with distant relatives. He's stuck in a foreign land because of an injustice that started when he was jumped 13 years ago.
The Philadelphia City Paper has the sad story of Maldonado and Calderon, who is still detained in the U.S. and scheduled to be deported next year. The injustices suffered by these men never seem to end.
The cousins say they were wrongfully convicted of murder aggravated assault for a 1996 fight. They say they were the victims of a hate crime. They were involved in a scuffle after a group of white men began yelling racial epithets on a Philadelphia street and attacked them. Even prosecutors agree that the white men started the scuffle. Maldonado and Calderon then grabbed a steering-wheel lock and a baseball bat -- they say to defend themselves -- and critically injured a man who prosecutors say was an innocent bystander a man who prosecutors say was an innocent bystander ended up in a coma (he may have gone into a coma because of a pre-existing blood clotting condition, more below). The man died two years later. The white men were never charged.
And now the prosecutor who convicted them -- Seth Williams -- has been elected as Philadelphia's next attorney general.
Sidestepping Immigration to Focus on Solving Crimes
Published October 28, 2009 @ 06:28AM PT
When federal and local officials work on identifying, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants, there's something else they're not doing: investigating, solving and preventing crime.
A great op-ed yesterday in the Los Angeles Times by LAPD Chief William Bratton makes a forceful and eloquent case for police departments to keep their priorities straight.
Police officers should concentrate their energy on solving crime, and undocumented immigrants shouldn't be afraid to come into contact with police if they witness a crime, or even more importantly, if they are the victims of a crime.
Unfortunately, police departments across the country are moving in the opposite direction. More than 65 law enforcement agencies across the county have entered into a partnership with the federal government, called 287(g). This program gives police officers the power to act as agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a monumentally bad idea. Bratton argues, rightly, that this program takes critical emphasis away from crime investigation and prevention.
Wrongfully Convicted and Now Deported, Too?
Published October 22, 2009 @ 04:16PM PT
The cases of Julio Maldonado and Denis Calderon are getting some attention in Philadelphia -- but Maldonado could still be deported in the coming weeks to Peru, a country he left 36 years ago when he was 3, if something doesn't give.
This case involves is a long, winding trail of injustice. Maldonado and Calderon were convicted of a 1996 aggravated assault in Philadelphia that they claim was not only self defense, but self defense in a racially motivated assault by a drunken gang. The evidence is strong that they were wrongfully convicted of this assault. They spent nearly three years in prison - but then their immigration nightmare began.
The men were both longtime lawful residents, but their conviction was grounds for deportation. They refused to sign a deportation order, and were sent to federal prison for hindering their own removal from the U.S.
More than 900 people have signed a change.org petition urging Pennsylvania Gov. Rendell to pardon the men. Join them here.
The Right to (Competent) Counsel
Published October 18, 2009 @ 10:29AM PT
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week in the case of Jose Padilla, a legal U.S. resident originally from Honduras who was challenging a guilty plea in a drug case because his attorney incorrectly told him the guilty plea couldn't lead to deportation.
In oral arguments, the court's right-wingers immediately challenged Padilla's attorney on whether a decision in favor of Padilla might open what the sage Antonin Scalia called a "Pandora's box" of burdens on attorneys to make clients aware of every possible outcome of a conviction -- from child custody to driver's license. Padilla's advocate before the Supreme Court, Stephen Kinnaird, responded - correctly, I think -- that deportation is one of few ancillary punishments "so severe and so material in a high number of cases" that should qualify for special consideration. Also, it wasn't just that Padilla's original lawyer failed to advise him of the impact. Padilla asked, and the lawyer advised him incorrectly. He pled guilty based on false information.
This is a critical issue, because deportation adds an extra layer of punishment in many thousands of convictions each year, and the legal issues around this double-sentence have not been fully explored. An editorial yesterday in the LA Times agrees with Kinnaird:
Give Sheriff Joe the Heave Ho
Published May 30, 2009 @ 03:16PM PT
An article this week by a retired Mesa, Arizona, police officer tells a revealing story about how law enforcement dollars and efforts can get misguided by immigration crackdowns. At the center of the failures detailed in the piece by retired officer Bill Richardson is infamous Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who is still conning his way into wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on immigration raids while ignoring his real job. By juxtaposing two events that took place the same day in Phoenix, Richardson makes a compelling case for cutting back on the praise - and the cash - that is sent Arpaio's way.
While Arpaio was testifying before the state legislature in support of more money for crackdowns on illegal immigration, a legal scholar across town was releasing a study on the failure of Arpaio's department to investigate serious violent crimes. Apparently, Sheriff Joe is so busy chasing down alleged illegal immigrants that his office ends up simply ignoring many of the real crimes it is supposed to investigate.
