The Land of the Free

The wages of the U.S. immigration system:

Six months after he was deported back to Mexico from the United States, Constantino Morales was shot and killed Sunday night. Morales, an undocumented immigrant who fought for immigration reform in Iowa, was twice denied asylum in the United States before he was found dead in the Mexican state of Guerrero.

“If I am sent back, I will face more violence and I could lose my life,” Morales said at a meeting with Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA) in August 2013, according to an Iowa-based, immigration advocacy group Citizens for Community Improvement’s (CCI) Facebook page. “We are in severe need of fair immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship. We don’t want any excuses; we know you can make this happen.”

CCI explained in a public Facebook message that Morales was “a former police officer in Mexico who publicly stood up against drug trafficking. After many attempts on his life, he came to the US in search of asylum and an opportunity to continue to work to support his family. He was a kind man. He never let his legal status limit his advocacy for immigrant rights.”

Morales fled to Des Moines, Iowa in 2010. Natalie Snyders, a CCI organizer, told ThinkProgress that since his arrival in the United States, Morales has worked at a local restaurant. He came to her organization’s attention because he was a victim of wage theft and “became quite involved in the organization as a leader speaking out about immigration reform and other issues related to the Latino community. … He was never afraid to speak out for the community, for the immigration system. A lot of people are afraid to speak out when they’re undocumented, but he wasn’t.”

Maria [last name withheld], a close family friend, mournfully told ThinkProgress that Morales came to the attention of immigration officials after the police pulled him over for a traffic violation and found out that he didn’t have a driver’s license. According to his asylum application, Morales was pulled over and let go twice, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) later showed up at his workplace “saying I had to go with them.”

We are truly living up to the noble rhetoric of our nation’s mythologies here.