Saturday, February 7, 2015

IMMIGRATION UPDATE: Court system, lawyers get last laugh.. and lotsa $$$ to go with it!

2/7/2015

Highlight: Ungrateful illegal mommies worry about being deported and separated from their anchor babies. Here's a newsflash: hundreds, if not thousands of Americans are sent to prison each day for committing crimes, ultimately they too are separated from their kids too. Quit bitching and just be glad you have the freedom you also don't deserve. 

Frustration of Undocumented Immigrants Grows as U.S. Courts Cancel Hearings

LOS ANGELES – The priority given by the Justice Department to children of Central American families who entered the U.S. in 2014 has meant that the hearings of almost 500,000 undocumented immigrants have been suspended indefinitely, as occurred with Ricardo Perez Luna, whose day in the Los Angeles Immigration Court was canceled.

“It’s been a long wait. It’s not fair that after all this effort, and I was finally on the point of getting my residence permit, they don’t even tell me when I’ll get to see the judge,” Perez, a native of Oaxaca, Mexico, told Efe.

The immigrant had a hearing scheduled for Jan. 28, the date when the judge was to award him his permanent residence, but his hopes vanished when he was notified that his hearing was canceled, as has happened to thousands of undocumented immigrants in recent days.

“The saddest thing is that there’s no date, I don’t know if it’s going to be months, a year, two...we don’t know what’s going to happen,” a frustrated Perez said.

For Fernando Romo, the attorney representing Perez, this case is a perfect example of the damage caused by congestion in the nation’s 230 immigration courts.

“It was a mere formality – my client had complied with all the requisites and only needed the judge’s approval. Ten minutes, that’s all we needed,” he said.

Perez entered the United States without papers in 2002, and, after investing more than $22,000 in representation and processing fees, the Mexican hoped to get his residence permit at last, but now he could be left waiting until the year 2019.

“Thousands of people are affected, not only those who were about to obtain their residence permit, but also those whose cases were still up in the air. They could even lose their eligibility,” Romo said.

Maria Angela Caceres applied for the cancellation of her deportation order so she could take care of her son, who suffers from a congenital disorder, and had a hearing set for Feb. 17, but that too was canceled this week.

“God gave me two children – the eldest, a girl, whom I brought with me from Mexico, and my little boy, who depends on me for everything. I’m asking the judge to let me stay with my son and daughter because it would not be right to separate us,” Caceres said.

In California alone there are more than 85,000 people waiting for hearings by an immigration judge, of whom more than 50,000 are in Los Angeles. After California, Texas has 70,099 cases pending, New York has 58,818, Florida 21,862 and New Jersey 19,828.

The wait for a hearing in the Los Angeles Immigration Court takes almost 800 days, though in courts like those in Otay Mesa, near the U.S.-Mexico border, immigrants have had to wait as long as 6,056 days.


source

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