Immigration Law
Some Citizens Wrongly Caught Up in Deportation Proceedings
Posted Apr 14, 2009, 08:13 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Some U.S. citizens are wrongly being deported because of an immigration legal system that stacks the odds against them.
The Associated Press has documented more than 55 cases since 2000 in which citizens were caught up in deportation proceedings. “U.S. citizens arrested as illegal immigrants or deportable residents cannot count on the legal system as a safety net,” the AP story asserts.
In the immigration system, arrests can be made without a warrant, arrestees aren’t read their rights unless there are criminal charges, they don’t get an appointed lawyer, and until January they didn’t get a free phone call, according to the story. And judges in the system are overworked.
Dana Marks, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, told AP that 214 immigration judges decided 350,000 cases last year. “You have an overburdened immigration court that is trying to make sure no one slips through the cracks, and it is difficult without resources,'' Marks told AP.
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