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04-13-2014, 02:44 AM
via Politico (http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/04/howard-dean-bailey-deported-i-served-my-country-and-then-it-kicked-me-out-105606.html):
Just a few years ago, I had a great life in the Tidewater area of Virginia. I had a wonderful wife who is a glass artist, and our two children were thriving. My trucking business was starting to take off. We were hauling goods from Norfolk’s port to distribution centers for Target and Wal-Mart. My wife and I bought our first house and had money in the bank.
I applied to become a U.S. citizen in 2005 and answered all the questions on the application honestly, even admitting to a stupid mistake I’d made years earlier. I passed the written and oral tests and completed the Citizenship and Immigration Services biometrics exam. I waited and waited, and when I called to ask whether there was a problem no one had answers.
Then at 6 a.m. on June 10, 2010, I answered loud knocks on our front door in my pajamas. Eleven armed immigration officers supported by state troopers were there with their weapons drawn, some wearing bulletproof vests. They stormed into my living room and put me in handcuffs while my wife came down the stairs, screaming, and my daughter, who was 12 years old, watched in horror. A few minutes later I was in their custody, just partially dressed, heading to the Hampton Regional Jail.
...
Navy recruiters came to my high school, and I quickly decided I wanted to enlist. It was a way to make my family proud and serve the country I now called home. So I signed up for a pre-entry program while I was still in high school and I worked on an aircraft carrier during the weekends. I graduated in May, and by August I was at boot camp in Chicago. It was hard and even scary at times—to wake us up in the morning, drill sergeants would come into the dorms with large metal trash cans and throw them across the floor. The first time I heard that sound, I was certain my heart would leap out of my chest. One of my dorm mates jumped out of his bunk in shock and broke his arm. Some guys washed out, but I stuck with it and when I finished and came home, I was proud to show off the uniform I had worked so hard to earn.
...
After I moved in with Judith, I met another Jamaican guy on the base and we became friendly. We shared a love for the music and the culture of our home country. One day I bumped into him and he asked for a favor. A friend was sending him a couple of packages from New York, he said, and he didn’t have an address other than the base. Could they come to my house? I gave it no thought. Sure, I said.When the boxes arrived one morning, each about the size of a case of beer, I was a little annoyed because I needed to get out the door to school. I called the guy to ask what he wanted me to do with them and he asked me to drop them off. I jotted down the address and tossed the packages in the car, running late already. I was driving toward the city limits when the police pulled me over. I never saw that “friend” again.
The boxes came from California, not New York, and were filled with marijuana. The cops had been tracking the packages. I had never smoked marijuana—still haven’t to this day. I don’t do drugs and rarely drink. But Virginia has always been tough on drug crimes, and the lawyer I hired suggested I take a plea deal: admit to felony possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, and do 15 months in a state work camp rather than go to trial and risk much more. As best I can tell, the other guy was never arrested or charged with anything.
The judge was compassionate but said he had no flexibility under the strict mandatory sentencing laws. I spent a few weeks in the city jail and then was transferred to a prison near Richmond, where I worked in the kitchen. Judith was pregnant with our second child but made the 90-minute drive to see me every weekend, even in the heat of summer, with no air-conditioning in the car. She gave birth to our daughter, Jada, without me, but brought her to see me as soon as she could. She was so strong, and we were so in love. When the time came, she and my mom came to pick me up and I promised Judith nothing like this would ever happen again.
Why did they come for me? While waiting to hear about my application for citizenship, I had hired a lawyer to find out why it was taking so long. Years had passed since I had finished the process. My attorney had set up a meeting with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services officials, who told me the delay was due to a problem with my application. I had admitted to my old conviction, but they had been unable to document it—the Virginia courts had not provided them the papers they wanted as backup. There was nothing in the system.Had I not admitted to the conviction, they probably never would have known about it, but they told me it disqualified me from citizenship.
I know a lot more about American immigration law now. No one—not the judge, nor the lawyer I’d hired—told me when I pleaded guilty to the drug charge that I was giving up my right to be a legal permanent resident of the United States.
I’ve since learned that what happened to me happens to thousands of people every month. Congress actually passed a law that requires ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, to keep a minimum of 33,400 immigrants locked up, awaiting deportation, at any given time. I tried to get back in front of a judge to plead my case, but I was again told that the judge’s hands were tied. This time, he said federal immigration law prevented him from considering the circumstances of my case because of the old drug conviction. He couldn’t take into account the fact that my conviction was for a nonviolent crime many years earlier, that I had never had another brush with the law or that I was a father to two U.S. citizens, a veteran, and a husband who owned a home and a business. We tried to reopen my old Virginia case. My lawyer even agreed to my claim that he hadn’t competently represented me. But too much time had passed and my request was turned down without even a hearing.
...
It’s still so hard for me to understand how I wound up here. I served in the United States Navy with pride and honor; I am a husband and father; I was a business and homeowner. I made a mistake, but that was 19 years ago and I never made another. In a country where marijuana laws are changing every day, where marijuana is now legal in two states, how could my one accidental encounter with someone else’s drug deal have destroyed my family?
I don’t know if any politicians will read this. I hear them talk about America’s duty to our veterans and about the need for a “humane” immigration system and about family values. Then I see them pass laws that tear families like mine apart and force people to lose their humanity. I’ve met judges and immigration officials who said that they wanted to help. I believe they felt compassion for me. But all of them said their hands were tied by Congress’s mandatory detention and deportation laws and the Obama administration’s enforcement “priorities.”
President Obama has said that the U.S. is prioritizing deportations of “criminals, gang bangers, people who are hurting the community” and not going after “folks who are here just because they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families.” But I’ve never been a danger to my community, and I’ve never wanted anything more than to be a good father and provider. And by prioritizing so-called criminals the government is failing to consider anything else about our lives before automatically banishing us from our homes.
My story is one of at least 2 million under this presidency alone. I think we deserve at least a chance to ask a judge to let us stay with our families in the country we call home.
This is what happens when you strip mercy and compassion out of the law. You stop meting out justice and just end up meting out cruelty.
Just a few years ago, I had a great life in the Tidewater area of Virginia. I had a wonderful wife who is a glass artist, and our two children were thriving. My trucking business was starting to take off. We were hauling goods from Norfolk’s port to distribution centers for Target and Wal-Mart. My wife and I bought our first house and had money in the bank.
I applied to become a U.S. citizen in 2005 and answered all the questions on the application honestly, even admitting to a stupid mistake I’d made years earlier. I passed the written and oral tests and completed the Citizenship and Immigration Services biometrics exam. I waited and waited, and when I called to ask whether there was a problem no one had answers.
Then at 6 a.m. on June 10, 2010, I answered loud knocks on our front door in my pajamas. Eleven armed immigration officers supported by state troopers were there with their weapons drawn, some wearing bulletproof vests. They stormed into my living room and put me in handcuffs while my wife came down the stairs, screaming, and my daughter, who was 12 years old, watched in horror. A few minutes later I was in their custody, just partially dressed, heading to the Hampton Regional Jail.
...
Navy recruiters came to my high school, and I quickly decided I wanted to enlist. It was a way to make my family proud and serve the country I now called home. So I signed up for a pre-entry program while I was still in high school and I worked on an aircraft carrier during the weekends. I graduated in May, and by August I was at boot camp in Chicago. It was hard and even scary at times—to wake us up in the morning, drill sergeants would come into the dorms with large metal trash cans and throw them across the floor. The first time I heard that sound, I was certain my heart would leap out of my chest. One of my dorm mates jumped out of his bunk in shock and broke his arm. Some guys washed out, but I stuck with it and when I finished and came home, I was proud to show off the uniform I had worked so hard to earn.
...
After I moved in with Judith, I met another Jamaican guy on the base and we became friendly. We shared a love for the music and the culture of our home country. One day I bumped into him and he asked for a favor. A friend was sending him a couple of packages from New York, he said, and he didn’t have an address other than the base. Could they come to my house? I gave it no thought. Sure, I said.When the boxes arrived one morning, each about the size of a case of beer, I was a little annoyed because I needed to get out the door to school. I called the guy to ask what he wanted me to do with them and he asked me to drop them off. I jotted down the address and tossed the packages in the car, running late already. I was driving toward the city limits when the police pulled me over. I never saw that “friend” again.
The boxes came from California, not New York, and were filled with marijuana. The cops had been tracking the packages. I had never smoked marijuana—still haven’t to this day. I don’t do drugs and rarely drink. But Virginia has always been tough on drug crimes, and the lawyer I hired suggested I take a plea deal: admit to felony possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, and do 15 months in a state work camp rather than go to trial and risk much more. As best I can tell, the other guy was never arrested or charged with anything.
The judge was compassionate but said he had no flexibility under the strict mandatory sentencing laws. I spent a few weeks in the city jail and then was transferred to a prison near Richmond, where I worked in the kitchen. Judith was pregnant with our second child but made the 90-minute drive to see me every weekend, even in the heat of summer, with no air-conditioning in the car. She gave birth to our daughter, Jada, without me, but brought her to see me as soon as she could. She was so strong, and we were so in love. When the time came, she and my mom came to pick me up and I promised Judith nothing like this would ever happen again.
Why did they come for me? While waiting to hear about my application for citizenship, I had hired a lawyer to find out why it was taking so long. Years had passed since I had finished the process. My attorney had set up a meeting with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services officials, who told me the delay was due to a problem with my application. I had admitted to my old conviction, but they had been unable to document it—the Virginia courts had not provided them the papers they wanted as backup. There was nothing in the system.Had I not admitted to the conviction, they probably never would have known about it, but they told me it disqualified me from citizenship.
I know a lot more about American immigration law now. No one—not the judge, nor the lawyer I’d hired—told me when I pleaded guilty to the drug charge that I was giving up my right to be a legal permanent resident of the United States.
I’ve since learned that what happened to me happens to thousands of people every month. Congress actually passed a law that requires ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, to keep a minimum of 33,400 immigrants locked up, awaiting deportation, at any given time. I tried to get back in front of a judge to plead my case, but I was again told that the judge’s hands were tied. This time, he said federal immigration law prevented him from considering the circumstances of my case because of the old drug conviction. He couldn’t take into account the fact that my conviction was for a nonviolent crime many years earlier, that I had never had another brush with the law or that I was a father to two U.S. citizens, a veteran, and a husband who owned a home and a business. We tried to reopen my old Virginia case. My lawyer even agreed to my claim that he hadn’t competently represented me. But too much time had passed and my request was turned down without even a hearing.
...
It’s still so hard for me to understand how I wound up here. I served in the United States Navy with pride and honor; I am a husband and father; I was a business and homeowner. I made a mistake, but that was 19 years ago and I never made another. In a country where marijuana laws are changing every day, where marijuana is now legal in two states, how could my one accidental encounter with someone else’s drug deal have destroyed my family?
I don’t know if any politicians will read this. I hear them talk about America’s duty to our veterans and about the need for a “humane” immigration system and about family values. Then I see them pass laws that tear families like mine apart and force people to lose their humanity. I’ve met judges and immigration officials who said that they wanted to help. I believe they felt compassion for me. But all of them said their hands were tied by Congress’s mandatory detention and deportation laws and the Obama administration’s enforcement “priorities.”
President Obama has said that the U.S. is prioritizing deportations of “criminals, gang bangers, people who are hurting the community” and not going after “folks who are here just because they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families.” But I’ve never been a danger to my community, and I’ve never wanted anything more than to be a good father and provider. And by prioritizing so-called criminals the government is failing to consider anything else about our lives before automatically banishing us from our homes.
My story is one of at least 2 million under this presidency alone. I think we deserve at least a chance to ask a judge to let us stay with our families in the country we call home.
This is what happens when you strip mercy and compassion out of the law. You stop meting out justice and just end up meting out cruelty.