U.S. citizens wrongly detained, deported by ICE

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

The son of a decorated Vietnam veteran, Hector Veloz is a U.S. citizen, but in 2007 immigration officials mistook him for an illegal immigrant and locked him in an Arizona prison for 13 months.

Veloz had to prove his citizenship from behind bars. An aunt helped him track down his father's birth certificate and his own, his parents' marriage certificate, his father's school, military and Social Security records.

After nine months, a judge determined that he was a citizen, but immigration authorities appealed the decision. He was detained for five more months before he found legal help and a judge ordered his case dropped.

... Veloz is one of hundreds of U.S. citizens who have landed in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and struggled to prove they don't belong there, according to advocacy groups and legal scholars, who have tracked such cases around the country. Some citizens have been deported.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/27/MNGQ17C8GC.DTL&tsp=1

[UndertheOcean]

1. Can he sue ICE ? 13 month is unbelievable

[ccharles000]

2. k/r

[babylonsister]

3. I'm so glad we avoided racial profiling.

:sarcasm:

[Newsjock]

4. Actually, alas ...

From the same story:

Houston chef Leonard Robert Parrish, 52, wasn't locked up by ICE or deported, but he did run afoul of a law intended for illegal immigrants.

The Brooklyn-born Parrish went down to the Harris County Sheriff's Office in September to clear up a problem over a couple of bounced checks. He wound up in jail on immigration charges. He was strip-searched and spent 12 hours in custody.

"The deputy told me I had a foreign accent," Parrish recalled. "I told him I had an East Coast accent. He said, 'It sounds like a foreign accent to me.' "

A 2008 Texas law required a person's citizenship status be linked to his driver's license. A sheriff's deputy told Parrish he was detained because when they ran his driver's license information through their computer, it said that his citizenship status was "unknown."

"I served on a murder jury in Texas and they can't find out I'm a citizen?" asked Parrish. "I'm still fighting. ... Nobody wants to take responsibility for locking me up for no reason."

[babylonsister]

5. Oh damn.

His NY accent was considered foreign, and that was enough to throw him in jail?

That's scary.

I live in Houston and am from NY.

:scared:

The stoopid hurts.

[pleah]

6. K&R

People that can't afford expensive counsel are just plain screwed.

[pampango]

7. "Collateral damage" in the war on illegal immigration?

Perhaps the ICE should use the same term that the military uses for innocent victims. Most of us are sick of the term "collateral damage" applied to military actions. (We acknowledge it happened but, since it was unintentional, it really shouldn't affect policy or military strategy.) Maybe using the same term in the war on illegal immigration will emphasize the the crazy and stupid nature of this "war" and the number of innocent victims it leaves behind.

[Kadie]

8. K&R

[Solly Mack]

9. K&R