Many deportees unwittingly waive rights, report says

[LeighAnn]

Source: LA Times

The U.S. has deported more than 160,000 immigrants, the vast majority of whom had no legal representation — and signed documents they may not have understood — under a program that carries severe penalties should they reenter the country, a report released Thursday said.

According to the National Immigration Law Center and professors at Stanford Law School and Western State University College of Law, immigrants often signed the so-called stipulated removals because they believed it was the only way to avoid prolonged detention. But by agreeing to the removal order, immigrants can be barred from returning to the U.S. and be subject to criminal prosecution for illegal reentry.

"All they hear is that they face more time in detention, often far away from family and friends, unless they agree to their own removal," said Jennifer Lee Koh, an assistant professor at Western State.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Nicole Navas said in a statement that the agency had not had a chance to fully review the study. But, she wrote, "an alien's decision to accept a stipulated removal is strictly voluntary. Before an alien agrees to such an order, ICE procedures require that the process be fully explained to the individual, through an interpreter if necessary."

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-immigration-orders-20110909,0,6519254.story

[alp227]

1. the IIRIRA bans deportees from re-entry for 10 years

with waiver exemptions, and those waiver usually require lawyering up, which many poorer immigrants can't afford.

[defendandprotect]

2. kr

[Lance_Boyle]

3. There are not immigrants, they are illegal aliens.

Once they illegally cross the border they have the right to turn around of their own volition, or to be deported. And that's about the extent of it.

Regardless of what they sign, they are forbidden illegal entry in the first place (illegal entry is a misdemeanor punishable by deportation) and are forbidden illegal *reentry* in the second place (illegal reentry is a felony punishable by prison time).