Noncitizens: travel wisely

Noncitizens told to travel wisely

By Jack Chang
CONTRA COSTA TIMES


OAKLAND - Immigrant advocates are warning noncitizens to think twice before traveling outside the country because of tougher government enforcement of some immigration laws.

As they try to re-enter the United States, growing numbers of legal permanent residents with criminal convictions on their records are being detained and placed in deportation proceedings, Herb Castillo, director of the advocacy group International Institute of the East Bay, said at a Friday news conference.

Such offenses can include shoplifting, cashing bad checks and drunken driving, Castillo and other advocates said.

The number is rising because the federal government in 2003 improved its ability to screen people entering the country. Airlines have been required since then to send all passenger lists to transportation officials for matches against FBI databases, Castillo said.

That process has snared many legal immigrants unaware that they were subject to removal, said institute staff attorney Naomi Onaga.

"The law that exists has existed for a while, but the implementation has become narrower and narrower and more punitive," she said. "These problems could happen even if (immigrants) have traveled before without problems."

Under a 1996 law, legal residents can be deported if they have been convicted of a felony or one of a range of misdemeanors, even if the conviction occurred decades before.

The San Francisco-based legal aid group Asian Law Caucus has seen a jump over the past four years in deportation cases involving legal residents who were stopped at ports of entry, said caucus staff attorney Joren Lyons. Such cases make up about 80 percent of clients seeking help at the caucus, he said.

"All these old convictions are popping up now," Lyons said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have noticed the same trend since 2002, with more passengers generating "special interest" and receiving extra inspection, said Nat Aycox, the bureau's San Francisco director of field operations.

"We do have better information access, and everybody's being subjected to that, not just permanent residents," he said. "If we find there's a criminal record for these people, we will react to that."

Federal officials could not provide data tracking the number of legal immigrants stopped at ports of entry.

The tighter enforcement has also snared some people with pending legal residency applications who had believed they could travel abroad because immigration authorities had granted them "advanced parole" allowing them to re-enter the country, Onaga said.

Federal law prohibits some people waiting to become legal residents from leaving the country -- no matter their other circumstances -- and advanced parole does not exempt them from those rules, she said.

A client of the institute who identified herself as Mariela received advanced parole and returned to her native Colombia this past summer. She is married to a U.S. citizen and had applied for permanent residency.

Two weeks after returning to the United States, however, federal officials placed her in removal proceedings.

"(Immigration officials) don't tell you that by them giving you permission to go, you're messing up all your paperwork," said the 25-year-old San Francisco resident. "We don't know what to do now.

"I would tell immigrants that unless you have your permanent residency card, you cannot leave the country."
Jack Chang covers demographics and immigration. Reach him at 925-943-8011 or [e-mail].