Well, all this is interesting to me, anyway, and that's what matters here. The Internet is a terrible thing for someone like me, who finds almost everything interesting.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
14-year-old deported by mistake
ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) deported a 14-year-old American girl - who doesn't speak Spanish - to Columbia! Think about that!
But it's the last part of this that really struck me. Poor people just expect this kind of thing. Spend the weekend in jail because no one gives a crap? Well, poor people don't expect anyone to give a crap.
"If it happened to me, I would lose it! If I spent the weekend in jail for nothing, I'd go crazy." Yeah, no kidding! But we expect to be treated like human beings, don't we?
I remember in college being stopped by the police a couple of times, when a group of us college kids were walking around Lincoln in the middle of the night (for no particular reason - after all, we were college kids).
We were highly indignant at being stopped and questioned. We weren't doing anything! We were just walking down a public sidewalk! Admittedly, it was in the wee hours of the morning. But what business did the police have in stopping us?
Of course, we were white, middle-class college kids. We expected to be treated like citizens. And the cops knew that. I'm not blaming them for doing their job, and I wasn't then, either. (Frankly, it's a tough job that you couldn't pay me enough to do.)
But the fact is, both sides knew what we expected from the police. And we would have been furious if we hadn't been treated well. We knew that and they knew that. But poor people? And especially, poor black people? I suspect that they don't expect to be treated particularly well.
And that's a tragedy.
I know that I would have hit the ceiling if the government had tried to deport me when I was 14 - or at any age - even if I had stolen something. And if they'd sent me to Columbia anyway, I'd have been demanding to see the U.S. ambassador the very next day. I just don't expect to be treated like that.
And if people do expect that kind of treatment, well, there's something wrong here. This isn't the America I know and love. You need to think of government officials as working for you. And if they don't behave that way, there had better be a damn good reason why.
7 comments:
Anonymous
said...
The difference is, she wasn't some sweet innocent blamelessly walking down the sidewalk. She was arrested for shoplifting and gave the cops a fake name and told them that she was a citizen of Columbia. http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/07/us/texas-colombia-teen-profile/index.html?hpt=us_c2
She's just a dumb kid making dumb decisions. They do that. Mine is smarter (her ability to communicate with the written word is appalling) but when he was that same age, he ran away from home to show me that he is grown up and can handle the adult world. He figured out real quick that he had no money for food, none of his friends would take him in, and he had no were to go. Yes child. Thank you for making my point for me, LOL. As bad as the government is, this is not on them, this is on her.
No, I have to disagree, Anonymous. This was definitely her fault, but it was also the government's.
Kids do dumb things. (Your own son is apparently an example of that.) Theft is wrong. Lying to the police is wrong. No one is denying that. No one is claiming that she's "a sweet innocent blamelessly walking down the sidewalk."
But our government has a responsibility, too, especially when dealing with kids. Maybe she wanted to go to Columbia. (Before posting this, I did check it out, but unlike the CNN article you reference, that one didn't say anything about this.)
But that's not an excuse. Sure, if it's true, this mistake is definitely easier to understand. But she's a minor. And if our government is going to be deporting kids, they'd better be damned sure they get it right.
Did they care? They care now, certainly. It's a mess now, and CYA is the order of the day. But at the time, did they see a human being, a person, a kid, or just an illegal immigrant (i.e. nobody)?
No, I have no problem blaming the girl. But that doesn't absolve others here.
(Admittedly, if she wanted to go to Columbia, that would explain why she didn't raise hell about it. In that case, this would be less about poor people expecting bad treatment, certainly. I do agree with that.)
Here's the issue... how would the government had known she was a "kid"? She maintained that she was a 22 year old Colombian woman and bamboozled the police, ICE as well as the Colombian Consul into believing her story.
It can be very hard to tell the age of a teen woman. A girl I went out with in high school, despite being 15 could easily pass for 23 and had no problem getting into bars, casinos, clubs, etc.
I think the reason why she didn't protest being deported was because she wanted to get away from her family in the first place. She gladly accepted the Colombian citizenship documents given to her, plus the work permit and job she was given. She posted on Facebook under her new identity, never showing any signs of distress. Even if she distrusted or feared the authorities, she could have messaged a friend or family member for help... but it's clear that she CHOSE not to.
As for not speaking Spanish, she could have made up a believable story to back this up, like: she was brought to the country as a baby, then her mother got deported, murdered, or simply abandoned her and she was cared for by friends/relatives who wanted her to "fit in" and not speak Spanish, etc.
Any person, even one who had been mistreated by authorities in the past, would have appealed the deportation and maintained their innocence (she was given a free lawyer to which she lied to as well). All this makes me feel like she WANTED to get a free vacation in the first place. During her time there, she got a second citizenship, learned some Spanish, made new friends and earned some legitimate work experience. Plus she has now has the coolest "ran away from home" story of all her friends...
Toby, you make some good points. And the fact is, I wouldn't have written the same post if the first news stories had included those details. It does sound more and more like she wanted to be deported.
Of course, that "believable story" you suggest to explain how a Colombian doesn't know Spanish just reminds me of what I dislike about our immigration policies.
If she had been brought to America as a baby and raised in this country for years, I wouldn't be too happy to see her dumped back into Colombia - a foreign country to her, where she didn't even speak the language - and without even a family for support.
We seem to have lost our minds in our hysteria about illegal immigration, and - around here, at least - it's all wrapped up in racism and bigotry, too.
Well, that's a different matter. And you're right, that CNN article gives a completely different impression of this from the first story I read about it.
I must also admit that I'm terrible at judging a woman's age. And even the difference between 15 and 14, which was the age given in the first news stories, can be significant, sometimes.
So I think you've convinced me to change my mind, Toby. (I assume that was you posting before, too?) Thanks for the comments!
Thanks! But actually I'm not the same guy than before.
--"If she had been brought to America as a baby and raised in this country for years, I wouldn't be too happy to see her dumped back into Colombia - a foreign country to her, where she didn't even speak the language - and without even a family for support."
I partly agree with that, however there's a few things that need to be considered:
- The person whose identity she assumed had warrants. Usually, immigrants who commit certain crimes in the US (whether they're legal immigrants or not) are subject to a higher priority for deportation. - She had a free lawyer and the opportunity to appeal the deportation on humanitarian or compassionate grounds for the reasons you mentioned. Such requests are sometimes granted, especially if the person would be in real and verifiable danger if returned to their homeland. She never opposed herself to deportation in court. - The Colombians took good care of her by giving her a job and place to stay. They asked her if she knew of any relatives in the country. I know plenty of expats who live alone in a foreign country with no family, it's not the end of the world, as long as you have means of support, a safe place to stay as well as the ability to adapt to the new environment (learn the culture, language, etc), plus socialize and make new friends (which the girl did very well).
"We seem to have lost our minds in our hysteria about illegal immigration, and - around here, at least - it's all wrapped up in racism and bigotry, too."
There is a certain racist element to it too. But I'm pretty sure a Dutchman or Swede that commits crimes in the USA and overstays his visa would be treated the same way than a Colombian when caught.
As I noted before, most of that came out after my original post. At least, it wasn't in the news article I read then.
The article did say that she'd been caught shoplifting, which is a crime, true, but only a misdemeanor.
And Toby, you may know plenty of expats who live alone in a foreign country and have no family support, but I doubt if they're only 15 (and not just without a family, but without money, either).
And I suspect that they were expats by their own choice, too. (My comment above was hypothetical - if she had been brought to America as a baby and deported against her will.)
Knowing what I do now about this particular case, I agree that my original post was wrong. But it was wrong because the facts of the case were not as I'd been led to believe at first.
Obviously, wrong is wrong. I have no problem admitting being wrong. But when we start talking about hypotheticals, my general position hasn't changed.
So I stand by that first statement. I'm not happy about our treatment of illegal immigrants who had no choice to come here and who grew up here. Dumping them back into a foreign country, without family support and without their even knowing the language (again, this is just a hypothetical situation), would be a disgrace.
And there is a racist element to "our hysteria about illegal immigration." Sure, we might deport a Dutchman or a Swede, but the immigration of Swedes is not what's causing such hysteria in our country (and wouldn't, not to this extent).
I'm a skeptic. I think it makes sense to have reasons for what I believe, so I apportion my belief to the evidence. You're welcome to disagree. Please, tell me I'm wrong. I probably don't agree with anyone about everything. Why should disagreement be a problem? Check the Pages section below for series posts and links to book reviews and game posts, as well as contact info. Unfortunately, I rarely blog at all, anymore. So don't expect new posts. - Bill
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. - Robert Wilensky
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong - Richard Feynman
The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other. - Sir Francis Bacon
When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Speculation is perfectly all right, but if you stay there you've only founded a superstition. If you test it, you've started a science. - Hal Clement
No matter how many times a theory meets its tests successfully, there can be no certainty that it will not be overthrown by the next observation. This, then, is a cornerstone of modern natural philosophy. It makes no claim of attaining ultimate truth. In fact, the phrase "ultimate truth" becomes meaningless, because there is no way in which enough observations can be made to make truth certain and, therefore, "ultimate". - Isaac Asimov
The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. - Treaty of Tripoli, passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate and signed by President John Adams (1797)
I don't doubt the sincerity of dowsers, but even after we've demonstrated that they can't produce results that are any better than chance they'll still go away believing in their abilities... It is like the mother whose son is caught shoplifting on tape. She wonders why someone would want to frame her child by producing a fake video. - James Randi
During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church ... imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. - Mark Twain
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. - Bertrand Russell
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. - Friedrich Nietzsche
I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. - Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.
This is not about proof. Science does not use proof. We favor evidence, and the work consists largely of the slow accumulation of evidence in support of ideas, not magically potent proofs that establish an idea as unassailable. - PZ Myers
No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. - President Barack Obama
The formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat. - Shekhar Gupta
We are prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs. - Carl Sagan
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. - Sam Harris
To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man. - Michael Servetus, burned at the stake in 1553
Democracy is not about majority rule; it is about minority rights. If there is no culture of not simply tolerating minorities, but actually treating them with equal rights, real democracy can't take root. - Thomas L. Friedman
We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us and with just as much apparent reason. - Thomas Macauley, 1830
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men. - Edward R. Murrow
The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. Science is simply common sense at its best - that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic. - Thomas Huxley
There is no absurdity so obvious that it cannot be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to impose it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity. - Arthur Schopenhauer
Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. ... Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. - President Thomas Jefferson
To be elected in America, no matter from what party, the candidates have no choice but to year after year pledge to lower taxes further and further. We have become the nation of Ken and Barbie, looking good but very poor at the math. - Rack Jite
Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them. - Steve Eley
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. - President Franklin D. Roosevelt
I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle. - Molly Ivins
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. - H. L. Mencken
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston Churchill
Space Roundup : heading into 2025
-
We haven't stopped moving ahead. Nor will we. And hence, with the aim of
ending a tumultuous year on a high note... *very* high... here's my roundup
of ...
Switched From PC To Mac After Buying a Mac Mini M4
-
by James Wallace Harris, 12/12/24 I’ve wanted to own a Mac since 1984, but
they were always too expensive. When Apple announced the Mac Mini M4 had
16GB of...
The SFF Blog
-
To all readers of my blog: I have decided that this will be my final post.
Not that I am about to expire in the near future (I hope) but I have become ...
Pandorica- Doctor Who Cafe
-
On our way home from our vacation we made a detour and stopped in Beacon,
NY at "Pandorica" a Doctor Who themed cafe. You can see The painting "the
Pand...
Pickleball Mania!
-
Not long after moving to Arizona, I met a guy who invited me to take a
pickleball lesson. I hadn't seen the game in person, but I'd heard of it,
and watch...
Posts
7 comments:
The difference is, she wasn't some sweet innocent blamelessly walking down the sidewalk. She was arrested for shoplifting and gave the cops a fake name and told them that she was a citizen of Columbia.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/07/us/texas-colombia-teen-profile/index.html?hpt=us_c2
She's just a dumb kid making dumb decisions. They do that. Mine is smarter (her ability to communicate with the written word is appalling) but when he was that same age, he ran away from home to show me that he is grown up and can handle the adult world. He figured out real quick that he had no money for food, none of his friends would take him in, and he had no were to go. Yes child. Thank you for making my point for me, LOL.
As bad as the government is, this is not on them, this is on her.
No, I have to disagree, Anonymous. This was definitely her fault, but it was also the government's.
Kids do dumb things. (Your own son is apparently an example of that.) Theft is wrong. Lying to the police is wrong. No one is denying that. No one is claiming that she's "a sweet innocent blamelessly walking down the sidewalk."
But our government has a responsibility, too, especially when dealing with kids. Maybe she wanted to go to Columbia. (Before posting this, I did check it out, but unlike the CNN article you reference, that one didn't say anything about this.)
But that's not an excuse. Sure, if it's true, this mistake is definitely easier to understand. But she's a minor. And if our government is going to be deporting kids, they'd better be damned sure they get it right.
Did they care? They care now, certainly. It's a mess now, and CYA is the order of the day. But at the time, did they see a human being, a person, a kid, or just an illegal immigrant (i.e. nobody)?
No, I have no problem blaming the girl. But that doesn't absolve others here.
(Admittedly, if she wanted to go to Columbia, that would explain why she didn't raise hell about it. In that case, this would be less about poor people expecting bad treatment, certainly. I do agree with that.)
Here's the issue... how would the government had known she was a "kid"? She maintained that she was a 22 year old Colombian woman and bamboozled the police, ICE as well as the Colombian Consul into believing her story.
It can be very hard to tell the age of a teen woman. A girl I went out with in high school, despite being 15 could easily pass for 23 and had no problem getting into bars, casinos, clubs, etc.
I think the reason why she didn't protest being deported was because she wanted to get away from her family in the first place. She gladly accepted the Colombian citizenship documents given to her, plus the work permit and job she was given. She posted on Facebook under her new identity, never showing any signs of distress. Even if she distrusted or feared the authorities, she could have messaged a friend or family member for help... but it's clear that she CHOSE not to.
As for not speaking Spanish, she could have made up a believable story to back this up, like: she was brought to the country as a baby, then her mother got deported, murdered, or simply abandoned her and she was cared for by friends/relatives who wanted her to "fit in" and not speak Spanish, etc.
Any person, even one who had been mistreated by authorities in the past, would have appealed the deportation and maintained their innocence (she was given a free lawyer to which she lied to as well). All this makes me feel like she WANTED to get a free vacation in the first place. During her time there, she got a second citizenship, learned some Spanish, made new friends and earned some legitimate work experience. Plus she has now has the coolest "ran away from home" story of all her friends...
Toby, you make some good points. And the fact is, I wouldn't have written the same post if the first news stories had included those details. It does sound more and more like she wanted to be deported.
Of course, that "believable story" you suggest to explain how a Colombian doesn't know Spanish just reminds me of what I dislike about our immigration policies.
If she had been brought to America as a baby and raised in this country for years, I wouldn't be too happy to see her dumped back into Colombia - a foreign country to her, where she didn't even speak the language - and without even a family for support.
We seem to have lost our minds in our hysteria about illegal immigration, and - around here, at least - it's all wrapped up in racism and bigotry, too.
Well, that's a different matter. And you're right, that CNN article gives a completely different impression of this from the first story I read about it.
I must also admit that I'm terrible at judging a woman's age. And even the difference between 15 and 14, which was the age given in the first news stories, can be significant, sometimes.
So I think you've convinced me to change my mind, Toby. (I assume that was you posting before, too?) Thanks for the comments!
Thanks! But actually I'm not the same guy than before.
--"If she had been brought to America as a baby and raised in this country for years, I wouldn't be too happy to see her dumped back into Colombia - a foreign country to her, where she didn't even speak the language - and without even a family for support."
I partly agree with that, however there's a few things that need to be considered:
- The person whose identity she assumed had warrants. Usually, immigrants who commit certain crimes in the US (whether they're legal immigrants or not) are subject to a higher priority for deportation.
- She had a free lawyer and the opportunity to appeal the deportation on humanitarian or compassionate grounds for the reasons you mentioned. Such requests are sometimes granted, especially if the person would be in real and verifiable danger if returned to their homeland. She never opposed herself to deportation in court.
- The Colombians took good care of her by giving her a job and place to stay. They asked her if she knew of any relatives in the country. I know plenty of expats who live alone in a foreign country with no family, it's not the end of the world, as long as you have means of support, a safe place to stay as well as the ability to adapt to the new environment (learn the culture, language, etc), plus socialize and make new friends (which the girl did very well).
"We seem to have lost our minds in our hysteria about illegal immigration, and - around here, at least - it's all wrapped up in racism and bigotry, too."
There is a certain racist element to it too. But I'm pretty sure a Dutchman or Swede that commits crimes in the USA and overstays his visa would be treated the same way than a Colombian when caught.
As I noted before, most of that came out after my original post. At least, it wasn't in the news article I read then.
The article did say that she'd been caught shoplifting, which is a crime, true, but only a misdemeanor.
And Toby, you may know plenty of expats who live alone in a foreign country and have no family support, but I doubt if they're only 15 (and not just without a family, but without money, either).
And I suspect that they were expats by their own choice, too. (My comment above was hypothetical - if she had been brought to America as a baby and deported against her will.)
Knowing what I do now about this particular case, I agree that my original post was wrong. But it was wrong because the facts of the case were not as I'd been led to believe at first.
Obviously, wrong is wrong. I have no problem admitting being wrong. But when we start talking about hypotheticals, my general position hasn't changed.
So I stand by that first statement. I'm not happy about our treatment of illegal immigrants who had no choice to come here and who grew up here. Dumping them back into a foreign country, without family support and without their even knowing the language (again, this is just a hypothetical situation), would be a disgrace.
And there is a racist element to "our hysteria about illegal immigration." Sure, we might deport a Dutchman or a Swede, but the immigration of Swedes is not what's causing such hysteria in our country (and wouldn't, not to this extent).
Wow, this girl seems a real piece of work.
Post a Comment