The ACLU filed a lawsuit last week against the U.S. government alleging that immigration officers are pressuring undocumented immigrants into signing their own deportation orders and waiving their rights to appear before an immigration judge. John Carlos Frey reports.
Photo: Family victim of coerced deportation. Courtesy of Rebecca Rauber.
John Carlos Frey is a freelance investigative reporter and documentary filmmaker based in Los Angeles. His investigative work has been featured on the 60 Minutes episode, “The All American Canal;” a three-part series for PBS entitled “Crossing the Line;” and several episodes of Dan Rather Reports, “Angel of the Desert,” and “Operation Streamline.” In 2011 Frey documented the journey of Mexican migrants across the US-Mexico border and walked for days in the Arizona desert risking his own life for the documentary Life and Death on the Border”. John Carlos Frey has also written articles for the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, Salon, Need to Know online, the Washington Monthly, and El Diario (in Spanish). Frey’s documentary films include The Invisible Mexicans of Deer Canyon (2007), The Invisible Chapel (2008), and The 800 Mile Wall (2009). He is the 2012 recipient of the Scripps Howard Award and the Sigma Delta Chi award for his Investigative Fund/PBS reporting on the excessive use of force by the US Border Patrol.
A Voluntary Departure doesn’t carry a 10 year bar from the United States. It carries no bar at all. You can come back the next day as long as you do it legally. Only a Removal Order issued from an Immigration Judge carries a 10 year bar. You can’t can’t even get a removal order unless you see a judge or you’re an aggivated felon. If you are going to shit talk Immigration, at least get your facts straight.
And your credentials are….?
Sorry, Mr.Nelson, I think you’re the one whose “facts” are inaccurate.
Read the whole statement,
“Voluntary departure allows aliens to avoid the 10-year ban on re-entry and receiving benefits by agreeing to depart the United States voluntarily, thus carrying no impediment to legally returning to the United States. Immigration law includes no limit on the number of times that an alien may receive voluntary departure, as long as the alien actually leaves the United States within the specified time frame. However, any alien who receives a voluntary departure grant and fails to depart within the specified time frame is ineligible for a period of 10 years for certain forms of relief, including another grant of voluntary departure, cancellation of removal, and adjustment of status.”
-Inspection Report I-99-09 – Introduction – Department of Justice