Saturday, September 23, 2006

It can't happen here.

* One of Larisa's cousins in Florida has lived in the US for thirty years with a green card. Last week she got the usual renewal documents in the mail and went into the police station to do whatever she needed to do, and was apparently manhandled and shackled and thrown into a cell and was told that she'd be deported to the Ukraine imminently, for no apparent reason. She wasn't even allowed to phone anyone.

After she had been disappeared for 48 hours, she finally convinced some nice officer that she was in desperate need of her heart medication and was allowed to phone her family to organize for some medication.

The family was able to find a lawyer and organize a temporary stay of proceedings.

The family lived through a similar situation in the Ukraine 30 years ago.

My immediate suspicion was that the deportation has something to do with Larisa's reporting, although that was somewhat ameliorated when I learnt that there has apparently been a flurry of similar events recently. 'Another 900 people' in some indeterminate part of Florida (perhaps the State?) in Broward county alone have been given their deportation notices in the last little while since Sept 1. I'm not sure whether I find that more or less comforting.

This report was brought to you in AP format. I'll outsource my emotional response to y'all in the comments.

update: or here:
Office of the Chief Counsel
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
333 S. Miami Avenue, Suite 200
Miami, Florida 33130
me, I'm speechless.

Update: This from the Miami Herald:
"An increase in detentions of foreign nationals by immigration officers in Florida has led to a surge in the detainee population at the already crowded Krome facility in West Miami-Dade.

Stepped up enforcement by immigration officers has resulted in a sharp increase in the number of detainees at the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade where the population may now exceed 1,000 -- almost double its publicly stated capacity.

[]

Barbara Gonzalez, a Miami spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in an e-mail that a recent increase in enforcement operations was largely responsible for the detainee ''surge'' at the site. ``This is the result of local immigration enforcement activity within the Miami Field Office.''."


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i thought 'we' don't have to do that thanks to the lovely halliburton detention centres they're building instead of fixing New Orleans.

'priorities.'

Superteemu said...

:(

If I thought it would do any benefit, I'd give them a call, but I doubt that having some euro-russian liberal showering them with obscenities would do any good for her.

Sigh. It's so depressing, watching all these horrible things unfold and feeling really really really powerless. If it were my country, I'd feel I could at least do something, instead of being a passive observer of all these predictable turns for worse, one after another.

How do you say it...? Be strong, all of you in this.

lukery said...

thnx teemu.

i feel the same.

the good news (for larisa's cousin) is that larisa has access to a bigger megaphone than most. i worry more for the other 899 folks. perhaps michelle malkin will stand up for them.

Anonymous said...

You'll see more crazy activity like this in places like Broward county Florida where the 9/11 hijackers either were close by or living (ie. San Diego). Why? Because dirty contractors , drug runners, etc. were up to no good in those places and the people who employed them want to keep it covered up.

Wake up folks.

«—U®Anu§—» said...

I had Charlie Davis at Anza Knives custom build two 14" battle weapons, one for me and one for Janet, after reading about detention camp and immigration plans. When I handed it to her, she thought I'd lost my mind. She doesn't think that anymore. "If they come knocking," I said, "use your knife."