Awful Immigration Surprises, Who’s Next?
But now she is facing a threat of deportation for illegally voting, because she never became a citizen after being brought to this country from Cuba when she was 1 year old.
“To be honest with you, I’m scared. How can they just pluck me out of my family, my kids?” the 40-year-old mother of four said in a telephone interview Friday.
“If they can do this to me, they can do it to anybody,” she said.
“the police came to me and said, ‘Zoila, you’re not a citizen. You’re a legal resident but you’re not a citizen,”‘ said Meyer
because she was not a citizen, Meyer faced a felony charge of illegally voting in the 2004 election.
What Meyer didn’t realize is that fraudulently voting is a deportable offense.
On June 18, Meyer said, immigration officials showed up at her home and told her to appear at their San Bernardino office.
Her husband drove her to the office on Tuesday, “and they handcuffed me,” Meyer said. “They put me in jail and they frisked me and processed me.”
“I said ‘You’re doing this because I voted?”‘
The case is unusual but immigration officials were just doing their job when they arrested Meyer, said Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“People are arrested on immigration charges from all walks of life,” she said. “She can plead her case before an immigration judge, if she feels that she has reason to seek release for removal. … Everybody has due process when they’re arrested.”
Meyer was released pending a July 18 appearance before an immigration judge who will determine whether she will be deported to Canada, the last point of entry into the U.S. recorded in her immigration record.
Meyer said she and her parents had visited Canada and she had gone many times to Mexico without anyone ever asking her to prove her citizenship.
Meyer said she does not support illegal immigration but she thinks immigration procedures should be changed to prevent misunderstandings.
“It makes me feel like we’re all just numbers,” she said of her case. “I see people writing ‘this is my country.’ It really isn’t. It belongs to the government and they decide who stays and who goes … you think you’re free; you’re really not.”
I fear this is the tip of a very UGLY iceburg. The current issue about immigration is about new illegals vs. people who have made a productive life in this country for years. How many of us don’t even know we’re NOT legal citizens? It is starting to happen. Homeland Security has a lot of power without a rational leadership or common sense.
Doesn’t anyone realize that building walls along our borders also helps keep US Citizens from escaping when this GOP dictatorship becomes too scary? Can you pronounce ‘BERLIN WALL’?
June 24th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
This is unbelievable. Voter fraud my ass.
This should make all of the Florida Cubans very uncomfortable in their undying support of Bush. How will the “wet foot dry foot” process by which all of them have enjoyed a quasi America citizenship hold up in court.
What made me hit my head was “sending her to Canada” because she visited there and was the last point of entry”. What if she never traveled where would the judge have sent her?
June 24th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Thanks NYT – haven’t heard anyone speak about the possibility that Texans, Arizonans, New Mexicans or Californians may try to get OUT of this insane country. It could be a political or natural disaster that starts a mass exodus. What ever the cause, a wall is a wall on both sides.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:57 am
she has paid her taxes and been an upstanding person and there pulling this crap on her. Tell ya what I will trade you 2 million lousy not paying taxes mexicans for one of her hows that?
June 25th, 2007 at 6:14 am
And I’ll raise you 15 million non-tax paying Americans that live in big houses and shuffle their money around tax exempt entities and offshore tax shelters – and those who live under the tax radar in a cash only system (ever go to a trade show or flea market?). It is sad the illegals pay their taxes more willingly …
Boss Kitty using NYTexan’s computer
June 25th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Ms. Meyer acted in good faith, apparently unaware she was not emtitled to vote. Seems to
me the fault and responsibility for her predictament lies with the voting authority of
whatever entity registered her. How did they
determine she was eligible? And … when she
pled to the misdemeanor, was it explained to her she was opening herself to deportation?
June 25th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
I recently read that the gov’t plans to deport the wife of one of the 3 kidnapped soldiers in Iraq. John Kerry has intervened on her behalf, but the deportation process is continuing.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Mirth:
The entire immigration policy in this country is just a disaster.
BossKitty did a post last week on the wife who is facing deportation. It is disgusting. Her husband filed all of the proper paper work its not like she was hiding. Thank god for Kerry and the Judge who had the sense to delay any further proceedings on her.