Jamaican native Howard Facey is married to U.S. citizen Georgiana and is the father of four American-born children. Like too many Facey visited the Federal Plaza building in Manhattan several times this year. He was hoping to pick up his work authorization. Instead, on his last visit a few days ago he was picked up and deported to Jamaica.
His wife, Georgiana went to Jamaica to give him clothes and to leave their youngest child Christopher. Holding back her tears Georgiana said, "I'll miss my baby. But we have no choice. Without Howard we can't afford a babysitter. I have to work so (that) we don't end up homeless. The morning Howard called to tell me he was being put on the plane, I had to go to work at Duane Reade. I don't have time to break down."
The Faceys are one of several families undergoing the problem of watching loved ones being deported. Juan Jimenez came to the United States when he was 13, works for UPS and planned to join the U.S. armed services next year. He visited Federal Plaza several times to complete his paperwork, get fingerprinted, and pass the test required for U.S. citizenship. He received a letter to report again on September 3, two days after his 19th birthday. He thought he was getting his naturalization certificate, but got shackled instead.
The next day at sunrise, he called home from Kennedy Airport to say, "they're deporting me to the Dominican Republic."
The Department of Homeland Security claims that the rapid-fire deportations are legal because both men had old deportation orders. They charge that Juan was ordered deported when he was fourteen, and Howard in 1995. Yet neither saw an immigration judge or received notice of the deportation order. Apparently no agent informed them of the old orders during any of their prior trips to Federal Plaza.
These cases are part of the reason for the Immigrant Workers Freedom rally. At a press conference earlier this month at the Flatbush-Caton Vendor Mart in Brooklyn attended by Roger Toussaint of the Transport Workers Union, Bertha Lewis, ACORN executive director, CouncilmembersYvette Clarke and Kendall Stewart, Clarke said that American immigration policy has generally recognized the natural desire of immigrants to reunite with their families here in their new homeland. "But the implementation of this humane response is bogged down in bureaucracy. Long delays, unnecessary restrictions and opaque procedures impose undue hardship on countless immigrant families, especially within the Caribbean-American community. Immigrant workers living and paying taxes in New York City deserve the right to legalize their status, to have a clear road to citizenship, to reunify their families, to have a voice on the job with regard to legal status, and to enjoy full protection of their civil rights and civil liberties . . . rights denied by their undocumented status and outdated laws. The road to citizenship needs a new map," said Clarke.
The goal of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride is to help draw that map. Current legislation cannot cope with the fact that America has the largest number of immigrants in its population (approximately 31 million) in its history. The number of families around the world who now have a loved one living and working in America has never been greater. With the new implementation of the U.S. Patriot Act, lawful permanent residents who happen to have committed some minor criminal offense in their distant past could be stripped of their right to an immigration hearing and court review.
Some 107 communities in 24 states representing 11.3 million people have now passed resolutions opposing the federal U.S. Patriot Act. Alaska is expected to join Hawaii in opposing the Patriot Act, as did the city of Baltimore and New York [ed. It has not passed in New York].
"I am calling on Caribbean Americans across this city, as well as all citizens of goodwill—many whose forefathers made the same journey that is made today by immigrants from across the Diaspora—to make their voices heard and to join this noble cause," said Clarke.
