According to an article in today’s Los Angeles Times: “A U.S. citizen who had been in the custody of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department before he disappeared in May after being wrongly deported to Mexico was found this week and ordered released to his family.”
This is an example of one of many errors that occur when the country is in a rush to deport and punish. Along the same lines, following the ICE raids that occurred in New Bedford, Massachusetts, there were reports of several parents of young children being flown to Texas to be detained without leaving caregivers for the children. On March 15, 2007, the Boston Globe ran an article with a timeline of the events proceeding the New Bedford raid.
The funny thing about these stories is that, had Comprehensive Immigration Reform been signed into law, as it eventually will be (hopefully in my lifetime!), many of those who were deported would have been in lawful status while waiting for their permanent resident applications to be processed. This would have allowed law enforcement to concentrate on capturing and deporting violent criminals rather than mentally disabled US Citizens or primary caregivers of young children who were working without authorization.
