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Posted on 04/12/2009 5:14:32 PM PDT by Turret Gunner A20
Pedro Guzman has been an American citizen all his life. Yet in 2007, the 31-year-old Los Angeles native - in jail for a misdemeanor, mentally ill and never able to read or write - signed a waiver agreeing to leave the country without a hearing and was deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant.
For almost three months, Guzman slept in the streets, bathed in filthy rivers and ate out of trash cans while his mother scoured the city of Tijuana, its hospitals and morgues, clutching his photo in her hand. He was finally found trying to cross the border at Calexico, 100 miles away.
These days, back home in California, "He just changes from one second to another. His brain jumps back to when he was missing," said his brother, Michael Guzman. "We just talk to him and reassure him that everything is fine and nobody is going to hurt him."
In a drive to crack down on illegal immigrants, the United States has locked up or thrown out dozens, probably many more, of its own citizens over the past eight years. A monthslong AP investigation has documented 55 such cases, on the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These citizens are detained for anything from a day to five years. Immigration lawyers
(Excerpt) Read more at home.peoplepc.com ...
Sounds like the plot from “Born in East L.A.”
"I understand that nothing is perfect, nothing will be perfect, but I don't understand how they could make a grave mistake like that," he said. "Because if this happened to me, I'm quite sure it's happened to somebody else. What's going to happen to the next person it happens to?"
It's the Government. This sort of bureaucratic tomfoolery happens all the time.
I don't know how we ever got along without him. Thank goodness he is back in the U.S.A.
An Obama voter I presume.
Did he have a red shirt on with a picture of Che on one side and Obama on the other?
An American Citizen just got screwed over by his government. Hmmmm, the next time jack booted thugs break down a door without a warrant and violate a citizen’s rights how can people find that any worse than what happened here?
You've got a point, but he signed the waiver. Why the H didn't he contact his mother if he didn't understand what he was signing? It isn't the government's responsibility to protect us from our own stupidity... although the dems are working hard at changing that.
I'd like to know if his identity was sold with or without his knowledge; or, more to the point, whether or not he got a cut.
The world can be a dangerous place for crazy people who cannot read, write, or communicate. Usually it is best for the family to take care of them, so that they are not out on the mean streets of L.A. committing misdemeanors.
It’s a good thing his run-in was with INS rather than a trigger-happy cop.
You beat me to it.
:-P
Either he must be the only person ever deported from Los Angeles or this story is a lie.
Each one may be very sad -- but we're talking tens of millions of citizens of other countries who have so little respect for our country that they refuse to honor our heritage of laws not men -- and they want prizes to boot! Go figure.
.. oh, and the unions want to organize them and collect dues, businesses want to keep the taxpayer-subsidized cheap labor (yeah, sure, for business), and Democrats want millions of sure votes.
I'm thinkin' ya nailed it!
OK, in the first place what "drive to crack down on illegal immigrants"? Bush wanted to roll out the red carpet for them. And secondly, if there's still 12-20 million illegals running around free, how many legals can possibly be getting detained/deported? These guys are grasping at straws, and grasping at straws is usually a sign of desperation.
“Why the H didn’t he contact his mother if he didn’t understand what he was signing? “
Did you miss the part in the article where it said he was mentally ill? I blame his family. They shouldn’t have let him wander around on his own. Of course caring for someone like that is very challenging. In the old days he would have been committed to a mental institution and locked away for life. Not ideal, but better than ignoring them like we do today.
No, I didn't miss it. He wasn't so mentally challenged that he didn't know how to make a phone call. He called a relative after he was in Mexico.
I believe the intent of this article was to curtail deporting illegal aliens with the argument that sometimes mistakes are made. Its written to tug at people's heartstrings.
I'm willing to accept the reality that we don't live in a perfect world, and sometimes life isn't fair. Promoting discontinuing deportations because the system isn't perfect is the same as saying we should never ever go to war because we know that civilians will sometimes be unintentionally killed.
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