So you thought only unauthorized immigrants are deported? Surprise - US citizens are sometimes shipped out of the US mistakenly. ICE officers often assume people are lying and mentally challenged individuals guilty of looking foreign and not being able to communicate well enough to overcome a stereotype. All good citizens carry a passport or birth certificate on them so these people are really asking for it, aren't they? </sarcasm off>.
I've blogged about Pedro Guzman before. Now his family is helping him to fight back. Good luck, Pedro.
All this seems like an honest mistake. Am I right that Pedro Guzman never claimed he is a US citizen while in ICE custody? If so, it is not clear what ICE could have done differently. There is no database of names of US citizens (and some people of this blog are strongly opposed to the creation of such database), so what is the cost effective way of checking that a person is a US Citizen if he is unable to recall his date/place of birth due to menthal illness?
Posted by: hmm | March 01, 2008 at 06:15 AM
Let me assure you that this has not happened in Singapore ever despite accusations of it being a dictatorial government and being shoddy with human rights. Never! However, it has happened in democracies such as Australia. In 2001 a citizen of Filipina origin was deported although she was married to an Australian (perhaps she was married to a white Australian which some racist elements in the Aussie immigration could not tolerate?..there are plenty of racist elements in the Aussie immigration service, believe me) and then there was a case of an Aussie citizen of German origin deported earlier or soon after that...Here are the limks...
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Out-of-sight-out-of-mind/2005/05/13/1115843371757.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Solon
http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/results.chtml?filename_num=12177
http://www.countercurrents.org/racism-polya150505.htm
Posted by: George Chell | February 29, 2008 at 04:58 AM