Plea to Obama Led to an Immigrant’s Arrest

[Barack_America]

Plea to Obama Led to an Immigrant’s Arrest

The letter appealing to President Obama was written in frustration in January, by a woman who saw her family reflected in his. She was a white United States citizen married to an African man, and the couple — college-educated professionals in Manhattan — were stymied in their long legal battle to keep him in the country.

Could the president help, asked the woman, Caroline Jamieson, a marketing executive. She described the impasse that confronted her husband, Hervé Fonkou Takoulo, a citizen of Cameroon with an outstanding deportation order from a failed bid for asylum.

The response came on June 3, when two immigration agents stopped Mr. Takoulo, 34, in front of the couple’s East Village apartment building. He says one agent asked him, “Did you write a letter to President Obama?”

When he acknowledged that his wife had, he was handcuffed and sent to an immigration jail in New Jersey for deportation.

But on Thursday night, Mr. Takoulo was just as suddenly released, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had been questioned about the case by The New York Times.

Officials said they were investigating how the letter — one of thousands routinely referred to the agency by the White House to gather information for a reply — had been improperly used by the agency’s “fugitive operations” unit to find and arrest Mr. Takoulo, who has an engineering degree and no criminal record...

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/19/nyregion/19immig.html?pagewanted=1


Not sure what to make of this.

Poor management within the Obama administration?
Vestiges of the Bush administration?

[one_voice]

1. I hope someone does a follow up...

I'd be interested to find out what comes of this.

[Barack_America]

3. I am interested as well.

I'd like to know more about the person who sent it to the fugitive's operations unit.

[Oregone]

2. All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds

[grantcart]

4. The title is conflict with the article

From the article:

a citizen of Cameroon with an outstanding deportation order from a failed bid for asylum.


This means that this person had already been arrested and was released awaiting finalization of the final deportation order. This is done so that people don't have to spend time in immigration facilities while awaiting final disposition. You have to promise that once the deportation order is decided that you will turn yourself in. This person did not keep his promise.


I have serveral sources in ICE. I have been able to confirm from three different sources that in the Southewest sector ICE has been given a standing order not to arrest ANY illegal aliens who ICE comes across whose only problem is a question of status if they are parents of minor children. All of their resouces are being put on identifying illegal aliens who are in prison or have committed other crimes.

So far this year in San Diego one ICE agent arrested one mother and the SFOD (Senior Field Office Director) was called to Washington to make sure that there was no reoccurence.

For those that allege that there hasn't been a sea change by ICE, they simply don't know what they are talking about.

[Barack_America]

6. I don't see the conflict.

The letter was cited during his arrest. There was a direct link between the letter having been written and his subsequent arrest and two week detention.

ICE also does not seem pleased with this case. From the article:

“ICE has a zero tolerance policy for violations of civil rights,” the spokesman, Brian P. Hale, said in a statement, adding that if it was determined “that appropriate separation between lawful correspondence and investigations was violated,” the case would be referred for immediate action by the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility and the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security."

[grantcart]

10. You are correct and I am wrong

I hadn't bothered to actually read the article and assumed that he was being "re-arrested".


The article confirms what my sources have told me, although it is even broader. What three different people told me was that the policy "not to arrest or detain" was for parents of minor children.

In any case ICE manpower has been relocated to prisons and jails and off the street.

It is obvious that this was a slip up, and there was another one in SD, but again a huge change from Bush Cheney that went into neighborhoods and tried to scoop up parents by the boatload.

[NYC_SKP]

5. Now: "officials told him he will be granted a work permit after he reports to immigration HQ..."

Having read the whole article, it seems to be an error that's been corrected and this wouldn't have likely happened with Bush.

-snip-

"...Ms. Jamieson recalled that she cried when Mr. Obama said during a 2008 campaign speech, “With a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya — ”

“I said, ‘Oh, Hervé, even the alliteration is right — with a mother from California and a father from Cameroon, our child could do the same!’ ”

But they have postponed having the baby they both want, she said, because of his precarious immigration status.

One step forward: officials told him he will be granted a work permit after he reports to immigration headquarters on July 1. ..."

.


:patriot:

[Barack_America]

7. Yes, but the man was also detained for two weeks until the NYT got involved.

That is not good.

How frequently this occurred during the Bush administration is something I would like an answer for.

[NYC_SKP]

8. Countless lives and families have probably been broken as a result of the Bush terms...

It's unclear if the NYT's intervention has as much to do with his release as the efforts of his wife, without whom the Times might never have become involved.

Either way, I'm happy for their ability to have had the correction done, they seem to have done nothing but contribute to society, no reason not to support their continued success.

A happy ending, but as you indicate, a red flag for what kinds of patterns of behavior may have been established.

:thumbsup:

[Barack_America]

9. There is a disturbing trend of administration actions contradicting Obama's stated goals...

With this event being the latest incident.

I would like to know what/who is behind these events.

With Cheney not long ago bragging about his remaining contacts within the CIA, it makes you wonder.