By Jacqueline Charles
Among those deported was […] Joseph, a Florida resident for more than 20 years who is engaged to be married and has a daughter who is a U.S. citizen. Joseph, who turns 40 next week, called his lawyer, Philip Issa, on Wednesday informing him that an officer at the Krome Detention Center in southwest Miami-Dade, where he had been detained since November, informed him he would be deported in the morning.
“He should not have been considered what they call an enforcement priority,” said Issa, an attorney with Americans for Immigrant Justice in Miami.
Joseph, who is originally from Haiti’s gang-controlled Artibonite Valley, was first ordered deported in 2005 after he missed his immigration hearing. Last year, after getting arrested for petty theft and burglary, he found himself back in the crosshairs of the Department of Justice, which denied him the opportunity to reopen his immigration case and contest his deportation order, Issa said. “I want to say that I’m shocked but I’m not. I’m upset more than anything,” Issa said. “Based on what I was reading about Haiti, I couldn’t imagine they could pull this flight off. I didn’t believe it until it actually happened. This administration has not given us any reason to think that it is dealing compassionately with immigrants and so I am upset. I’m disappointed because they are sending him back to a war zone. It’s catastrophic.”