Non-violent undocumented immigrants who were left alone by then-President Obama are now being rounded up by the Trump administration
Angel Ortiz Paz was warming up his car just before 6 a.m. outside his Gaithersburg, Md., townhouse on a recent morning when federal agents pulled in behind him.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were looking for two other men who were undocumented immigrants in the neighborhood, but they started asking Ortiz about his status. As his wife and two children — all U.S. citizens — were inside the house, Ortiz showed them his Maryland-issued driver's license and his Honduran passport.
The agents ran a background check on the information and found that Ortiz was also an undocumented immigrant. They saw a 9-year-old DUI conviction on his record and a 16-year-old deportation order issued by a federal judge shortly after Ortiz illegally crossed the southwest border into the U.S.
The agents handcuffed and arrested Ortiz. On Monday, after failed attempts to appeal his case, Ortiz was deported back to his native Honduras, according to his family.
The construction worker has now become the latest face of President Trump's deportation program, which calls for rounding up non-violent undocumented immigrants who would not have been deported under former president Barack Obama's policy.
"When my son watches the news, he says, 'Look, the people who took my papi,'" Ortiz's wife Francis said, referring to their son, Angel, 6. "He is everything to this family. My whole world is missing. Trump has destroyed the lives of many people in my situation."
From the start of his presidential campaign, Trump made clear that he would clamp down on illegal immigration by ramping up deportations. But he and members of his administration repeatedly said they would focus on undocumented immigrants who were hardened criminals — gang members, murderers, rapists or "bad hombres," as Trump described them.
Since Trump took office, however, ICE has made clear that while agents target criminals, they also will round up any other undocumented immigrant they catch along the way. The agency even sent a series of tweets two weeks ago reminding young undocumented immigrants granted deportation protections under Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that they also could face deportation.
The result: A growing number of DACA recipients, mothers, fathers and grandparents with no violent crimes in their backgrounds are being deported or face deportation in the two months Trump has been in office.
ICE spokesman Matthew Bourke said Ortiz qualified for a deportation because he was an "immigration fugitive," based on his DUI conviction and the deportation order issued by a judge in 2001.
0 comentarios:
Post a Comment