IMMIGRATION DRAGNETS TARGET EX-CONS

The Miami Herald - Tuesday, March 4, 2003
Author: CHARLES RABIN AND ALFONSO CHARDY, achardy@herald.com

Antonio Miguel, a longtime legal resident, talks with his three children daily, but sees them only about once every three months - when guards escort him to a tiny judge's chamber at the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade County.

Miguel's three children - ages 11 months, 7 and 12 - require extensive medical attention. Each has had a liver transplant because of a genetic defect, and the youngest, Antonio Jr., is at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami fighting rejection of his new liver.

Miguel, 35, is getting little sympathy from immigration authorities.

He faces possible deportation to his native Guatemala - one of thousands of foreign nationals with criminal pasts caught up in intensified immigration dragnets.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, immigration authorities have gradually improved computer systems and assigned renewed urgency to catching foreign nationals who qualify for deportation.

LAW REQUIREMENT

Since 1996 the law has required detention and deportation of foreign nationals convicted of certain crimes - even those committed before 1996.

But interviews with several immigration attorneys in Miami and across the country indicate that over the past year, legal residents with old criminal records are being detained and put in deportation proceedings in higher numbers.

``There's been a big increase,'' said Tammy Fox-Isicoff, a Miami immigration attorney. Ira Kurzban, another Miami immigration attorney, said he has seen at least 10 clients with similar problems just in the past few months.

``Before, it was sporadic to get such clients,'' said David Leopold, an immigration attorney in Cleveland.

Most immigration attorneys attributed the increase to improved immigration computer databases along with a new focus on homeland security.

``Indeed, the information is getting better,'' said Bill Strassberger, an immigration agency spokesman in Washington, D.C. But officials pointed to other reasons, too, including more detention space and Justice Department pressure to crack down on foreign convicts.

Attorneys also said the most common way foreign legal residents with criminal records get caught now is by renewing green cards or returning from trips abroad.

A Justice Department inspector general's report released in September said the immigration agency had failed to keep track of and deport convicted foreign nationals.

A key problem, the report said, was lack of coordination with county authorities. Immigrants were going in and out of county jails without the INS' knowledge, and some went on to commit more crimes. Immigration officials said they are taking steps to improve work at the county level.

In Jacksonville Thursday, immigration officials said that cooperation with North Florida authorities had led to the arrests of 31 foreign convicts.

Officials also signaled they intend to make detention and deportation of convicted noncitizens a priority under the new Department of Homeland Security, which absorbed the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service on Saturday.

8 PERCENT INCREASE

Detention and deportation is now handled by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement - one of three bureaus that replaced the INS.

In the first four months of the fiscal year that began in October, the INS had detained 43,072 foreign nationals with criminal records. That's an 8 percent increase over the same period a year earlier.

The majority of criminal detainees are Latin Americans, and the most common charges are drug crimes and assaults.

The increase in detentions of convicted foreigners has infuriated immigrant advocates.

``This is destroying families,'' said Michael Bander , a Miami immigration attorney who says he is also handling more cases of convicted legal residents. ``This is done in the guise of protecting the country from terrorists, but it's ripping a lot of families apart.''

None of the new cases has anything to do with terrorism. But immigration officials said Sept. 11 was the catalyst for increased operations against all foreign nationals with criminal records.

Now, legal residents' old convictions or immigration violations are showing up in immigration agency computers as officials add information from a number of other federal agencies and law enforcement units.

That's how Miguel, the Guatemalan at Krome, got caught.

He came to the attention of immigration agents in 2000 after serving a 364-day sentence for grand theft.

Miguel also had convictions for dealing in stolen property in 1998 and for carrying a concealed firearm in 1990.

After his sentence, Miguel was taken to Krome, but was quickly released on bond and ordered to report to the INS periodically.

During an immigration appearance in April 2002, Miguel was rearrested when an INS database matched his fingerprints to a set on file from 1986, when he first sneaked across the Mexican border.

LIED ABOUT NAME

When Miguel was caught, he lied about his name and nationality so he wouldn't get sent back to Guatemala. It worked: He was dropped off in Mexico and successfully slipped into the United States a week later.

Miguel got a green card under his real name during an immigration amnesty in 1988. His fraud case from two years earlier was not detected then.

Though Miguel qualifies for deportation, immigration attorneys say a judge can take sick children into account when ruling.

``You have to prove extreme hardship,'' attorney John Pratt said. ``You have to prove some of your family members will suffer if you leave.''

Miguel's wife, Candelaria Pascual, 29, cares for her three American-born children alone. She had to quit her job as a farmworker.

She says if Miguel is deported, she will remain here, where her children have a brighter future. ``I go to church a lot. No matter what happens, I have to carry on for the children,'' she said.

With friends and South Miami-Dade's Catholic Charities, the family is managing, but barely. Home is a small, government-subsidized apartment in Homestead. The charity supplies food and clothing for the children.

In a borrowed beat-up car, Pascual couriers her trio of kids back and forth from Jackson at least once a week. Whenever she can she takes them to Krome. A hearing in Miguel's case is set for today. Caption: color photo: Antonio Miguel (a), Candelaria Pascual hugs her daughters Elena, 12, left, and Maria, 7 (a)
RICHARD PATTERSON/HERALD STAFF WAITING: Candelaria Pascual hugs her daughters Elena, 12, left, and Maria, 7. Their father, Antonio Miguel, who is being held at the Krome detention center, has an old criminal record and faces possible deportation.