In 2005, Manuel Bravo, 35, walked to a stairwell of the Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Center carrying a bedsheet. He hung himself.
The note he left indicated that he had done it so that his son, Antonio Bravo, 13, could remain in the United Kingdom to be educated. The pair were to be deported back to war-torn Angola the next day, where they alleged that they had been victims of abuse by the ruling party.
Now, Antonio is 19, training to be an electrician, speaking in Yorkshire dialect, no longer speaks his native Porteguese, and will be deported back to Angola if his humanitarian visa is not extended. "My family, they're English," he said, referring to the Beaumonts (his adoptive family). "Britain, that's my culture." [more inside]
posted by guster4lovers
on Aug 27, 2011 -
32 comments
In the US, for the past thirty years, new laws have been stripping judges of any discretion whatsoever in ensuring
sentencing and
other consequences of criminal activity are fair. Enter Qing Wong Hu, a Chinese immigrant who arrived in the US when he was 5, and
now faces deportation for a string of muggings he committed in New York City in 1996, when he was still a juvenile. This, despite his successfully turning his life around and becoming a hard working, productive member of society.
posted by wierdo
on Feb 21, 2010 -
19 comments
An Interpreter Speaking Up for Migrants: Erik Camayd-Freixas is a professor and a legal translator who assisted in the fast-track trial and sentencing of the over 400 illegal immigrant workers in Postville, Iowa, who were arrested on criminal charges involving identity theft rather than the usual deportation proceedings. Unusually for a court interpreter, who maintain a strict code of impartiality and neutrality, Camayd-Freixas spoke out, writing "that the immigrant defendants whose words he translated, most of them villagers from Guatemala, did not fully understand the criminal charges they were facing or the rights most of them had waived."
[more inside]
posted by Forktine
on Jul 11, 2008 -
46 comments
Article in UK newspaper The Independent about two members of Nottingham University, U.K., Rizwaan Sabir and Hicham Yezza, who were arrested last week on terrorism charges and held for six days before being released without charge. The reason was that they had downloaded a terrorist manual from a US government website, which MA student Sabir needed for his research into terrorism, and which was approved by his supervisor. His friend Hicham Yezza, former student and current administrator at the university was arrested for helping to print out the 1500 page document. On release Yezza was then immediately rearrested on immigration charges and now faces imminent deportation, despite being a resident of the UK for 13 years and currently in the process of applying for citizenship. A
campaign is currently underway to prevent this.
[more inside]
posted by leibniz
on May 26, 2008 -
84 comments
"Dr. Nalini Ghuman {is} . . . a citizen of the United Kingdom and a professor of music at Mills College in Oakland, California. In August 2006 Dr. Ghuman was detained upon her return to the United States."
And nobody knows why.
[more inside]
posted by fourcheesemac
on Sep 18, 2007 -
123 comments
The nationalist Swiss People's Party (who garnered 26% of the vote in the last elections) is proposing a
deportation policy reminiscent of Nazi-era practices. Under the plan, entire families would be expelled if their children are convicted of a violent crime, drug offense or benefits fraud. And get a load of their
black sheep poster campaign, or their 2004 poster, with the dreaded
black hand reaching for (gasp!) a Swiss passport. Yodel-odel-ay-eeeeeee-
who?
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Sep 2, 2007 -
75 comments
Elfriede Hut aka Elfriede Rinkel, 84 years old, allegedly was a guard at the nazi female concentration camp of
Ravensbruck. After the war she married
Fred William Rinkel (link to obituary), a longtime member of
B'nai B'rith. She left U.S. on Semptember 1st for Germany, were she will probably spend the rest of her life, as she recently was expelled and banned from re-entering U.S.A.
posted by elpapacito
on Sep 20, 2006 -
73 comments
Bobby Fischer found, trying to travel from Tokyo to the Phillipines. He has been detained and is awaiting deportation to the states for attending a 1992 chess match in Yugoslavia in violation of international sanctions.
posted by o2b
on Jul 16, 2004 -
46 comments
Non-citizens put on notice to file change in addresses The Ashcroft Gestapo strikes again!
If a permanent resident doesn't file this change-in-address form, they are talking about penalties up to and including
deportion! Note we aren't talking about student visa holders or anything like that .. we are talking about people who have lived in this country for 10 .. 20 .. 30 years or more in many cases.
This country is really turning into a police state the way things are going.
posted by ssheth
on Jul 23, 2002 -
44 comments
According to the US State Department's
website, New Zealand citizen Mohammed Saffi was not in violation of his visa when intending to attend a Miami flight school for 727 aircraft engineering certification.
At least that's what NZ Green Party foreign affairs spokesman Keith Locke
says.
posted by sycophant
on Jul 7, 2002 -
9 comments
Great article on how gang deportees go back to their old countries much deadlier than before they left. Reminds me of the prison is a "criminal college" argument.
posted by skallas
on Nov 11, 2000 -
3 comments
The Latest Michael Moore message is about the INS trying to deport 8 hotel workers. The workers were arrested in a raid, thanks in part to their employers tipping the INS off, in retaliation for the workers starting a union. Even though they won a court battle over Holiday Inn's unjust labor actions, the INS is still after them. Is this fair?
posted by mathowie
on Apr 20, 2000 -
8 comments
