Immigrant raids mark start of years of limbo
The Associated Press
Monday, February 9th 2009
GREELEY, Colo. — Ernesto Garcia counted himself lucky after he was swept up in a 2006 immigration raid on a northern Colorado meatpacking plant: Unlike hundreds of co-workers here illegally, he was allowed to stay in the U.S.
Two years later, he's jobless and barely getting by while he waits for his immigration case to be resolved.
The 34-year-old Guatemalan is among hundreds of people across the country stuck in limbo while their cases inch their way through immigration courts.
A favorable ruling would get them a green card. But in the meantime — and the meantime can be years — they are barred from working.
Julien Ross, director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, calls it a "sadistic" way to get immigrants to give up and go home.
"This is another example of why the raids don't work," Ross said. "It's almost salt on the wound to have them wait for years for their cases to be resolved. And the government knows they can't work."
Immigration cases do not have the same "speedy trial" requirements as criminal cases.
Denver's four immigration judges each have up to 2,000 cases at a time, so delays are inevitable, said Christina Fiflis, an attorney who has represented some of the workers detained in the federal raid on the Swift & Co. plant in Greeley on Dec. 12, 2006.
Some can apply for work permits, but often there is an "extraordinary delay" in getting them, she said.
Unable to work, many rely on friends, family and charity.
"In many cases, the families will exhaust all options to see if they can remain in the country, especially families who have been here for a long time," said Rosa Maria Castaneda, a researcher with the Urban Institute, a Washington-based group that tracks the impact of workplace raids.
Carl Rusnok, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the agency does not know how many people arrested in raids are still in the United States waiting for immigration court hearings.
"Although this is their right, there are limits on what they can and cannot do in the meantime. There is no provision in law to give work authorization to those who have been found working illegally in the United States," Rusnok said.
Elaine Komis, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review — the immigration court system — said it is common for immigration cases to take years when people appeal a decision by the immigration judge.
Castaneda's group doesn't have an exact count of pending cases from recent work-site raids.
http://www.nydailynews.com/latino/2009/02/09/2009-02-09_immigrant_raids_mark_start_of_years_of_l-2.html
