Deporting Immigration Activsts
By Regardless of what one thinks of the strategy of civil disobedience from immigration activists who risk deportation, actually deporting one of them is incredibly awful.
Perez’s lawyer, David Bennion, explains that deportation doesn’t make sense. She came to the country at the age of four, graduated from a high school in North Carolina. According to Bennion, Perez did not have a criminal record and left in 2009 to pursue her future in Mexico because of “attrition by the [United States] government’s harsh policies.”
Perez could have qualified for “prosecutorial discretion,” based on a 2011 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memo which directs federal authorities to focus deportation efforts on criminal immigrants. Instead Bennion claims that officials chose to make an example out of Perez for “political motivations” to deter future activists from attempting to cross the Mexican border in the same high-profile way.
The Texas regional ICE public affairs officer Leticia Zamarripa which handled Perez’s case, wrote, “The individual in question, a Mexican citizen, was afforded full due process under law and the opportunity to present the facts of her case before an impartial immigration judge. After a review of the case by the immigration judge, the individual was determined ineligible for immigration relief.”
Whether this was an attempt to silence activism like this, I don’t know. But it will almost certainly have that effect. And deporting someone who is an incredibly useful member of society (just by being this politically active if nothing else) sets an awful precedent.
Obama’s immigration policy has been mostly bad, as Latinos and immigration activists have long complained. Regardless of Republicans not allowing an immigration bill to pass, the drastically increased deportations has alienated many of the fastest growing segment of American society and while the recent emphasis on deporting criminals and leaving others alone has had some effect, there is still a lot of room for unnecessary deportations. Really disturbing stuff.