Editorial: Immigration crackdown bypasses criminals to punish family breadwinners

SYED AHMED JAMAL

The following is an editorial from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 20, 2018
THE NEW AND BEWILDERING policies of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement seem more aimed at punishing harmless people simply for being in this country illegally, as opposed to going after the truly bad people who deserve to be removed.

The ordeals of two families, one in Missouri and the other in Kansas, put a human face on ICE’s inhumane crackdown.

Alex Garcia in Poplar Bluff, Mo., and Syed Ahmed Jamal in Lawrence, were arrested despite having no criminal convictions. The arrests deprived their families of breadwinners and induced untold stresses. Such arrests have increased substantially under the Trump administration even though deportations have lagged.

The net effect is just to split up families, as if by spite.

Does the nation benefit by forcing people whose only crimes were overstaying visas or entering the country illegally — the two most frequent immigration violations — to separate from their families? Until last year, ICE officers were forbidden by presidential order from arresting immigrants for either violation. Criminals were supposed to be the priority.

Garcia, 36, arrived illegally from Honduras in 2004. He got a job, met and married a local woman and went to work for her father’s construction company.

Jamal, 55, entered from Bangladesh legally on a student visa in 1987. A chemist, he overstayed two visas before receiving an H-1B work visa to be a hospital research scientist. Jamal taught college-level science for five years on legal work permits. He paid regular visits to ICE offices.

He is married with three children and recently ran for the school board. That didn’t stop authorities from arresting and handcuffing him in his front yard in January as he was preparing to take his 12-year-old daughter to school.

These family men have coped with a dizzying immigration system for years. Their situations are different, but neither tried to hide from authorities. The agency shifted from deporting undocumented criminal immigrants to detaining non-criminal immigrants. The agency’s 2017 data show a 41 percent increase in immigrant arrests compared to 2016, with the share of criminal arrests up 17 percent and non-criminal arrests up 171 percent.

Cracking down on men like Jamal and Garcia does nothing to make our streets safer. And for all Trump’s talk, immigration reform remains a distant dream.

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Professor awaiting deportation hearing released from detention

SCREEN CAPTURE

Kansas professor Syed Ahmed Jamal was greeted by his wife outside the Pleatte County Jail Tuesday.

THE COURTROOM broke out into applause when a judge freed the Kansas professor being detained by ICE as a prelude to his deportation.
U.S. District Judge Roseann Ketchmark said Tuesday (March 20) that though the government was entitled to detain Syed Ahmed Jamal for a reasonable period of time, his lack of a criminal history and his strong ties to Lawrence favored his release.

Jamal, who has lived in the area for more than 30 years and taught chemistry at the college level, had overstayed his visa and was detained by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in front of his home on Jan. 24 as he was preparing to take his daughter to school.

Although he is out of jail, that doesn't end the deportation proceedings against Jamal. The father of three is still waiting to hear whether he'll be deported.

The judge's ruling is a major legal victory for Jamal, 55, whose plight drew national attention after he was arrested on Jan. 24 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on the front lawn of his Lawrence, Kansas, home as he was about to take his daughter to school.

ICE tried to deport Jamal Feb. 13 when, without notifying his attorneys, put him on a plane back to his home country. His legal team scrambled and was able to get a court to issue a stay of the deportation order until his hearings are over. Jamal was taken off the plane in Honolulu, HI, and returned to the Platte County Jail where he has been since.

The Kansas City community, neighbors and friends have rallied around Jamal''s plight.

A bill has been introduced in Congress that would override the deportation order and allow Jamal to remain in the U.S.

As he left the Platte County Jail, his wife and children were there to greet him. His 7-year old son said, "Dad, I haven't seen you in forever!"
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ICE policies target law-abiding immigrants, net college professor

Syed Ahmed Jamal and his three children.

IMMIGRATION AGENTS continue to go after the law-abiding undocumented Americans in their stepped up efforts to comply with Donald Trump's harsh immigration policies.

The latest case is Syed Ahmed Jamal, a Park University adjunct professor in chemistry, in Kansas City who was arrested Jan. 24 in his driveway as he was preparing to take his daughter to school.

Jamal arrived in 1987 on a student visa to attend Kansas Universityi, according to his wife. He returned briefly to Bangladesh and obtained an H-1B visa to work at Children’s Mercy Hospital. Then he returned to KU to pursue his doctorate, trading his H-1B status for another student visa.


In 2011, after Jamal’s visa status became invalid, he was given a “voluntary departure” order. The following year, an immigration judge ruled that Jamal was allowed to remain in the country, as long as he checked in with ICE regularly to maintain his work permit.

Despite Trump's claim of keeping America safe and going after undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are targeting immigrants who were granted supervised stays. This policy contrasts with President Obama's policy that gave less emphasis on immigrants such as Syed and instead focused their efforts on those with serious offenses. According to a Public Radio International story in May, about 2.5 million immigrants fall under this category and almost 80 percent have no criminal record.

The law-abiding immigrants who comply with instructions to report to ICE annually are easy targets for the agency. ICE know the whereabout of these immigrants, most of whom have been living in the U.S. for many years, have contributed to their communities and raised their U.S.-born children.

Cambodians in California, Sikhs in New England, Indonesians in New Jersey and New Hampshire, South Asians in New York or Mexicans living in the heartland, the low-hanging fruit have been swept up by overzealous ICE agents looking for quick and easy deportations.

Trump’s new immigration policies have targeted immigrants who were granted supervised stays. According to a Public Radio International story in May, about 2.5 million immigrants fall under this category and almost 80 percent have no criminal record.

As ICE agents placed handcuffs on Jamal, his daughter, a 7th-grade girl ran into the house to alert her mother and brother, while Jamal, a chemist, was handcuffed and led into a car. When his wife tried to hug him, an agent said she could be charged with interfering in an arrest, according to the Kansas City Star.

Jamal, a Park University adjunct professor in chemistry. Jamal, who received a doctorate in molecular, cellular and developmental biology from the University of Kansas, has been in the U.S. three decades. Besides teaching, he volunteers at his children's schools and even ran for the local school board. 

ICE officials released the following statement:

"Syed Ahmed Jamal, 55, from Bangladesh, initially legally entered the United States in July 1998 on a temporary nonimmigrant visa. After he overstayed that visa, a federal immigration judge allowed him voluntary departure until Aug. 26, 2002. He abided the judge’s order and departed for Bangladesh on July 24, 2002. Three months later, Jamal legally re-entered the United States on Oct. 25, 2002, on a temporary nonimmigrant visa. He again overstayed his visa, and a federal immigration judge allowed him voluntary departure until Oct. 26, 2011. However, Jamal violated the judge’s order and failed to depart the United States, and the voluntary departure order instead became a final order of removal (deportation)."

The ICE spokesman said federal immigration judges make final decisions “based on the merits of each individual case.”

Jamal’s family, friends and neighbors have rallied to support Jamal. They are hoping to persuade immigration officials to allow him to stay. A Change.org petition went up Feb. 2 Jamal's behalf, and it has since garnered more than 15,000 signatures urging ICE to grant him a stay of removal. He is now being held in a Morgan County jail in Missouri, according to the petition. Jamal, they argued, was the very sort of model citizen who should be allowed to remain in the country.

After decades of living the American dream, the Jamal family fears this is the end of that dream.

"People who don't do anything wrong shouldn't have to face things like this,” said daughter Naheen Jamal.

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Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article198215114.html#storylink=cpy