Con-turned-social worker may avoid deportation

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(05-06) 16:12 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- An immigrant who spent 19 years in prison for a San Francisco kidnapping and robbery won a chance to remain in the United States on Friday when a federal appeals court told immigration judges to consider his work with youths and community service behind bars before deciding whether to deport him to China.

Xiao Fei "Eddy" Zheng was 16 when he committed his crime. He is now 41, works at a Chinatown youth center and has received support from numerous community leaders and officials in his fight against deportation, including his prosecutor and a former state prison director.

But immigration officials argue that Zheng deserves to be deported because of the gravity of the crime he committed.

Zheng and two other teenagers staged an armed takeover of a family's Chinatown home in January 1986, tied up the children and their father and forced the mother to accompany them to a family-owned store for a robbery.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/06/BAS11JD37O.DTL

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Zheng is a legal immigrant who came to the US at age 12. And the SFGate.com bigot-bots are winning in the comment section.

[dkf]

1. I think this is a serious offense and needs to be addressed through deportation.

If kidnapping isnt serious enough to warrant deportation what is?

[angstlessk]

2. Change his name to Diago and see how America wants to keep him

and his family in America?

[dkf]

5. Shouldn't make a difference if the guy was from Canada.

Kidnapping is kidnapping and that is scary stuff.

[alp227]

3. but Zheng appears to have been rehabbed by prison,

and it's not really an "automatic deportation" as the judicial system has the final judgment when it comes to revoking one's temp residency.

[dkf]

4. To me a person who can kidnap someone for money is whacked in his thinking.

I'm not sure that is fixable.

[alp227]

7. has he as a community anti-violence advocate kidnapped any more people? n/t

[dkf]

9. No but I am not sure how entirely stable a person who can do that is.

And worse yet what happens in years of prison? But hey I have no personal experience with anyone who has kidnapped someone or who has held someone up or even someone who has beat another person up. It's all alien. I've never even met anyone who has been in prison. Maybe they turn into nice guys after all. Who knows.

[alp227]

11. me neither, but let's stay away from sweeping generalizations n/t

[RC]

6. He was 16 when he did this. He served his time. Let him stay.

I swear DU is becoming more like that other site that shall not be mentioned. You know the one full of empathetically challenged sociopaths.

[lunasun]

13. almost surpassing it! sad and out of touch

[IronicNews]

8. How come they didn't just deport him in the first place?

I guess I need to study my law but if it was part of his sentence to serve time and then be deported then I supposed that is what needs to happen. On the other hand I know very very people who do the same things at age 41 that they would do at 16. What were the circumstances of the case? Was he desperate at 16 or just sick?
Did he get psychological treatment in prison?
He is at least serving his community while he is imprisoned. That is a choice and says something about him.

[alp227]

12. welcome to DU, and you made a typo "very very" and no i dnt think deports are auto

as i pointed out earlier, it's the court system (in this case the 9th circuit appeals) who have the final authority on enforcing deportation law just like in any criminal trial where a citizen would be defendant; a judge oversees a trial and directs the jury and hands down the final sentence or may dismiss the case altogether

[bhikkhu]

10. I think the courts should decide

Getting all worked up on the internet over a story based on a snipped few sentences is a bit silly, when the people who are responsible for the decision will have a great deal of time spent with first hand information available to inform them. The people involved do it for a living, are likely very competent, and are likely to make a good decision.