A woman is beaten in front of her two young daughters. What’s the first line of advice from the peanut gallery? “Call the cops! Press charges! Call 911!”
Yeah. Okay. Maybe not in Georgia.
Emelina Ramirez called police to tell them her roommates were attacking her, punching and kicking her in the stomach. When the police arrived, they handcuffed her, took her to jail and ran her fingerprints through a federal database. She is now in an Alabama cell awaiting deportation.
Getting a beat down while brown is a crime.
Ramirez, 30, was three months’ pregnant in June when, she says, her roommates attacked her. The Carrollton police officer who arrested her did not speak Spanish. He charged her with simple battery and took her to jail.
When jail officials ran her fingerprints through their database, they discovered that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wanted her because she had missed a deportation hearing in Texas.
“The bottom line is: She was in the U.S. illegally,” said Lt. James Perry, the investigating officer in the case. “She was involved in an incident where the system caught up with her. That was that.”
Carrollton police do not target illegal immigrants, Perry said. In the last year, the department has worked with undocumented immigrants who were witnesses or victims of a July 2006 home invasion that resulted in murder at a trailer park. Since then, the Police Department has set up a Spanish-language tip line.
Still, the police report from the Ramirez case raises questions about whether officers do, in fact, target Latinos.
After Ramirez was arrested and her 8-year-old daughter went to the station to give her account of the incident, Perry said, he went back to the house to interview the roommates about the allegations.
Before asking questions, however, Perry asked the inhabitants for identification and observed “both body language and verbal language that led me to believe they might be illegal.” According to the police report, “we then told everyone they would have to go to the jail to be fingerprinted.”
We can thank Carrolton’s finest for showing us just how much of a priority crime fighting is–it’s pretty high, if the crime you’re worried about is an expired visa, or being brown, or having suspicious body language. The assault and battery? Not so much.
Note too, the lack of outrage of a beatdown of a pregnant woman–in this case, a Latina woman. And make no mistake, that’s because there is no concern for her or the fetus. If she was White, you’d see all sorts of outrage over the harm to the fetus. The DA would file charges. If she miscarried as a result, heads would roll. But she’s not White, and she’s not middle class, and her fetus won’t be a bundle of joy but just another brown face that too many people would like to see gone.
Xicanopower also reports that Ramirez was possibly abused by her ex-husband. This is a dirty little secret–abusers will hold the citizenship status of their partners over their heads. Report the abuse, go to jail. Lose your kids. Get deported.
I’m pretty sure some folks will step up and ask why she didn’t just leave. Why not leave her abusive ex? Why not leave this horrible situation with her psychopathic roommates? And the only thing I can say to that is, have you ever been through this? Abusers use everything at their disposal to control their targets–be it money, violence, fear, whatever. You don’t realize going in that someone is just a craptastic abusive jackhole. It happens gradually, and by the time it’s really bad you’re in so deep and you’re so messed up by the abuse that you feel there’s no way out.
Oh, and? If you’re an immigrant, apparently there is no way out, except to jail.
Thanks to Brownfemipowerfor the heads-up post.
Update (from XP, who posted this over at my site):
I finally got a little more information about the whole ex-husband deal. Her friend just left a comment on my site. This is what he just told me.
She did marry a police officer from Carrollton, GA who, instead of obtaining an attorney and getting her legal status straightened out, held her status over her head, and was abusive towards her. He is the father of her youngest US born child. After about a year and a half of abuse, and aid from a woman’s shelter, she obtained a divorce from the abusive cop, and thanks to him, remains “undocumented”.
Karlas’ father has not paid child support in I don’t know how long, nor has he made any attempt to see his daughter.
Is it being “undocumented” that’s the crime here? Or is it being brown and female?
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They are trying to pass a similar law in South Carolina that would make the local police responsible for enforcing emigration law. The police are lobbying against for exactly this reason.
Wait, I’m confused. If she was legally married to a US citizen in the US for any real length of time (a year or two, say), she should still be eligible for a green card. Or at least she wouldn’t be facing deportment right now had her husband not held her status over her head (I’m assuming by “never getting around to” filing the necessary paperwork) and instead gone through the usual legal channels to get her papers sorted out. Non-citizens who had a green card via marriage to a citizen don’t have their residency status yanked upon divorce.
This is so fucked. Surely something can be done to implicate the ex-husband in all this. Though somehow the fact that this is a small Georgia town and the ex-husband happens to be a cop gives me the feeling he’ll remain blameless and she’ll be deported like the Brazen Illegal Hussy she is.
oh, and “like the Brazen Illegal Hussy she is” was a joke, realized i hadn’t put any sort of snark marker in there, and that I did the same thing to togolosh yesterday.
It’s actually very rare for local police to do anything whatever about immigration law violations–I know, for example, an illegal immigrant who just successfully completed 2 years’ of probation for drunk driving, without any inquiry into his immmigration status.
Note that marrying a US citizen doesn’t necessarily solve an illegal immigrant’s legal problems, if she was here illegally at the time of the marriage.
I’m pretty sure some folks will step up and ask why she didn’t just leave. Why not leave her abusive ex? Why not leave this horrible situation with her psychopathic roommates? And the only thing I can say to that is, have you ever been through this?
I don’t know that you even have to ask that question if you’re talking to someone so stupid that they don’t understand that someone who’s afraid that they will be arrested and deported isn’t going to be quick to run to the police if she’s being abused.
On a less personal scale, that’s exactly what the employers of illegal workers count on — they can underpay, not pay, and abuse them all they want because, unlike a citizen worker, they can’t complain because they’ll be deported and the employer can hire another illegal worker to abuse. It’s only in the most egregious cases (like the Thai sweatshop workers who were literally imprisoned in the workplace here in Southern California) that the cops will pay any attention at all.
There’s nothing you can do if her roommates where also illegally here except for a slap on the wrist.
A working-class town north of Chicago has passed an ordinance directing police to deport illegal aliens. They say this will just be aimed at suspects arrested for “serious crimes.”
Suuuuuuure.
And the woman in your post used to be married to a local cop? If this isn’t retaliation, the word has no meaning.
And the woman in your post used to be married to a local cop? If this isn’t retaliation, the word has no meaning.
Yeah, that kinda creeped me out, too — a local cop’s pregnant ex-wife is arrested and threatened with deportation, but it has nothing to do with the divorce, no sirree. Why, they’re just enforcing the law and it’s just a strange coincidence that she’s their colleague’s ex-wife.
It’s called 287G. I work in an immigration-related field in the Southeast, and I’ve met with the county sheriff’s office about this thing, and the thing is: if the sheriff’s department picks someone up, and runs their fingerprints through the ICE database, and they come up with priors or in some other sense the sheriff’s office thinks they are a problem case, then they are on the list for deportation. No trial, no court proceedings. And the thing is, in this county, the court might be the first time a spanish-speaking person gets a translator.
One of the examples of priors was driving without a license. It is currently legally impossible in my state for undocumented residents to get a driver’s license.
Now, the ICE office for my state has a total of two cells. They have to hold people before they deport them, and their total capacity is about 20 people. There is no way they’re going to be rounding up all the undocumented illegal drivers in my state. But they can create a climate of fear where things like this happens. And then blame these incidents on the noncooperation of the Hispanic community.
In short, feh.
ditto, bitter scribe and mnemosyne
…and they know they can get away with it because she’s poor and Latina so there won’t be any outrage by the public if word gets out.
Wait a second.
If she has a child that’s an American citizen and she is the primary care-giver how can they deport her? This is effectively deporting an American for something outside his/her control. They can’t give the child to an abusive father… well they could I guess, but they shouldn’t
I know , this doesn’t make sense. What a mess this lady is in! I thought that if you have a child in the US, even if you didnt have citizenship, that you then have legal precident to stay in the US ?!
I’m curious to know how far along the baby is… cause if she has another child on US soil…
CJS:Any money says that’s EXACTLY what they’re doing.
That’s how this sort of small-town politics works.
Of course not. It’s not the whole “illegal immigration” thing, it’s very definitely “race.” Besides, some brownies are legal, you gotta find other ways to punish them.
Jesus Christ on a unicycle, Georgia! May circumstances never lead me back there.
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) created specific mechanisms that would allow this woman to petition to adjust her status, by virtue of her former marriage to the abusive U.S. citizen husband. All she needs is an attorney with even a rudimentary knowledge of immigration law to help her. Unfortunately that “all” is a rather large ask in most parts of the country, particularly in Georgia where indigent legal counsel is…sparse. This account should be forwarded to any immigrant rights groups or womens’ groups in the state, as they may know of counsel close enough that might be willing to help on a pro bono basis.
I know , this doesn’t make sense. What a mess this lady is in! I thought that if you have a child in the US, even if you didnt have citizenship, that you then have legal precident to stay in the US ?!
They’re not supposed to deport developmentally disabled American citizens, but they went ahead and did it anyway.
Sickening and more sad than most of the news. How can these people (the police officers) sleep at night?
This is cops looking after their buddy, the abusive husband. And you can bet he’ll get the kid. Cops think they are above the law.
It’s despicable, but it’s pretty much to-be-expected when you give police free reign to decide whether or not to “investigate someone’s status.”
Unfortunately, a lot of people here in GA take the Brown Menace crap that comes out of O’Reilly’s mouth seriously. There was recently some legislation passed in a town not far from where I live that allows Landlords to do obtrusive background checks on Tenants of a less than snowy complexion.
The poor whites don’t want the Mexicans to move in and take over but they also don’t want to work the low paying non-unionized cracker-factory jobs that are about the only line of employment in a lot of small Georgia towns.
“Or at least she wouldn’t be facing deportment right now had her husband not held her status over her head (I’m assuming by “never getting around to” filing the necessary paperwork) and instead gone through the usual legal channels to get her papers sorted out.”
I’m confused, too–because if she’s married to an abusive US citizen, she should be able to self-petition under the Violence Against Women Act. Even if her husband refused to file the paperwork to petition for permanent residence for her. That’s the problem that the Act’s immigration provisions are written to avoid. But then, probably the answer is that she didn’t have good legal help?
I am Latina and I am tired of this, “If she was white…” nonsense. This is just an attempt for us to distract ourselves from a profound issue–gender–and focus on immigration status, which is the major problem here, rather than ethnicity.
If she had her papers, the cops should have done something. If they hadn’t, Univision or Telemundo would have covered it and she could have filed civil rights charges. If she was illegal and white, she would sadly face the same fate as this woman. Russian mail-order brides are one prime example (Some are tricked into coming here on tourist visas only never to legalize their status so as to be under the control of their American husband without recourse). It is not about ethnicity here, but status. Deportations are increasing at an alarming rate as Bush is trying to shore up his base. ICE is making no exceptions.
You would’ve done no harm in stating, “If she were legal…” instead of using the “white woman” battle cry, which does nothing but hurt all women (and girls) as it trivializes the issue of gender in favor of race as if white women and girls were not also human beings or were somehow immune from suffering from the bigotry of misogyny.
I lived in Carrollton for 6 yrs. Actually, I lived in suburb of Carrollton called Mt. Zion. (pop. 75. Oh! Wait! That was the average IQ, never mind.)
Having actually lived there, I can make an educated guess that it’s 15% the brown, 15% the divorce and 70% “she made him look bad in front of the town by saying he’s abusive.”
I am Latina and I am tired of this, “If she was white…” nonsense. This is just an attempt for us to distract ourselves from a profound issue–gender–and focus on immigration status, which is the major problem here, rather than ethnicity.
I think it’s “both/and” not “either/or.” A Russian mail-order bride would probably find herself in the same situation … but an illegal Irish immigrant probably would not. And, yes, there are a lot of illegal immigrants from English-speaking countries who are working here, but they somehow get left out of the anti-immigrant hysteria.
Cheers Miller. Women regardless of ethnicity face discrimination and hurdles –> some say we’re passed ‘women’s lib’ yet females still make up to 60% less than males in similar jobs…. but let’s not go down that long road. I agree on the immigration status focus..
I’m not sure I follow. The cop didn’t speak her language, so instead of getting a fellow officer who *could* speak Spanish down to the house to find out what happened… he arrested her? How could she understand Miranda rights when he arrested her, if he spoke them in English? Or do cops carry around a card with Miranda in multiple languages?? I’m guessing illegal immigrants have no Miranda protection, so a cop’s failure to read rights to a person he’s arresting in the end doesn’t matter…?
being eligible for a green card versus actually having one is, of course, the distinction that makes all the difference.
technically, you don’t have to be married to a citizen for more than a day; you’re eligible from day one of your marriage, provided you can convince la migra that your marriage isn’t a convenience affair designed to get around the immigration system.
(i call them la migra, because i’m fed up trying to track their repeated name changes of recent years.)
filing fees were about $400 and change, back when i filed for my green card. but that was nearly a decade ago; they’re very likely higher now, and that doesn’t count various other fees for fingerprinting, health check-up, etcetera, either. plus, once your application is accepted, you enter a legal limbo while it’s being processed (which can take years); your status then is “applied for change in status”. you’re not supposed to be deported then, either, but i wouldn’t bet much on that these days.
the hitch is once you’re actually accepted for legal residency. if you applied based on marriage, you have to convince The Man that you’re not just sham married to get the green card; this is done at a face-to-face interview; and if your spouse doesn’t cooperate at said interview, getting the right stamps and check marks will be nigh impossible. maybe it could be done, but i wouldn’t recommend trying it without hiring a professional immigration lawyer first.
you’ll have to show up in person for various other appointments before the interview, too. FBI fingerprinting, health inspection to make sure you’re not carrying TB or HIV or somesuch, and possibly other things if you’re out of luck. unless you live in a city that just happens to have immigration and FBI offices in it, along with a la migra-approved physician (yes, there’s a list; it’s frequently out of date, too), you’ll need to travel to these. i had to drive five-plus hours on repeated occasions, myself. having a helpful spouse along really eased that part, needless to say.
once you get the green card, it will usually be a temporary one, good for two years. if you’re still happily married when you file to renew it at the end of those two years, The Man will be finally convinced that your marriage wasn’t a sham, and you’ll get a permanent green card that will not expire unless it’s revoked. if you’re out of luck and your application process takes longer than two years, then your first-ever green card may end up being permanent; staying married that long is good enough.
getting divorced before your two years is up might not necessarily mean deportation, but it does mean you’d be well advised to hire an immigration lawyer. there’re still ways to get to stay, even then (spousal abuse exceptions, among others), but they’re not ones you can easily navigate without help.
so illegal aliens married to abusive jerks who won’t help them through the process are well and truly up the creek without their paddles, yes. if they don’t speak the language well and/or can’t afford legal advice on their own… they’re in a cold, hard, lonely place.
No kidding. I know of a Brit who was illegal for 10+ years. Another reason no one bothered to report or harass her? She was married to a county cop for the entire period. Her marriage was obviously in better shape.
deep6:
In Carrollton? I doubt they even have a cop that can speak Spanish.
Carrollton is only about an hour from Atlanta, but it might as well be on a completely different planet for all the cultural similarity between the two.
being eligible for a green card versus actually having one is, of course, the distinction that makes all the difference.
I know about most of the stuff you mention in your post, I just… It just… Well, “boggles the mind” about covers it.
There is a teensy teensy part of me that really did take to all the “Government Is Your Friend” propaganda that gets hurled at white middle class kids, and I just sometimes cannot get through my head that there isn’t a special little immigration fairy in there somewhere who makes sure shit like this doesn’t happen. Even though obvs I know that can’t be true, and people get royally boned all the time for no real reason (well, OK, several real reasons like the color of their skin, the shape of their genitals, the language they speak, the amount of money in their bank account, etc).
But there’s just a little part of me that rails so hard at the injustice of shit like this that I can barely comprehend it.
How could she understand Miranda rights when he arrested her, if he spoke them in English? Or do cops carry around a card with Miranda in multiple languages??
Due to some complicated bit of legalese somebody figured out a few years back, the cops don’t actually have to read you your rights anymore.
Two quick hypotheticals that aren’t really related to the particular circumstances here, but anyway:
1. If she’d had a British accent, would they have run her through the ICE database?
2. If one the persons beating her up had a British accent, would they have run that person’s name through the ICE database?
(Let’s just say that local police generally don’t follow up on things that would make a person subject to deportation or denial of entry if you’re not one of ‘those’ kinds of immigrants.)
Anyway, the back story on this is similar to the flag incident in Asheville. Local cops behaving like little Hitlers, people calling up their cop buddies to do them ‘favours’. Small-town police forces do that sort of thing.
But how was she supposed to know about that if her abusive cop ex-husband basically blackmailed her with her immigration status? This is a problem with the husbands of mail-order brides, too.
It’s now close to $1000, which includes advance parole and work authorization, but not the medical fee ($200+, cash only please).
But Mnemosyne’s point holds: if you’re from the Anglosphere, you’re treated as the ‘right sort’ of immigrant, regardless of status. And if you’re from the Anglosphere, you likely have the language skills (and a degree of cultural familiarity) to give you a better chance of escaping an abusive situation.
This, though, is a combination of immigration blackmail, a climate where it’s okay to pick on Hispanics, and Good Ol’ Boy po-licing. Tastes pretty nasty.
Damn, Dan?! How can they not have someone who speaks Spanish? What about the county sheriff’s department or a state police officer? Why isn’t there mandatory foreign language training for police officers? Communication is as much a part of their job as intimidation and harassment are.
*opoponax* - is that true? I’ve never witnessed an arrest anywhere other than on TV. I thought Miranda was still law of the land…????
You’ve really not spent any time in the Georgia sticks.
The police/authorities still have to inform you of your rights if they intend to question you beyond “What’s your name/address/DOB?” but they don’t have to until the questioning begins.
Scalia and Thomas, among others i’m sure, would like to see that end, but it hasn’t just yet.
Because Georgia is one of those “if English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me” states.
Screw the nativists. I don’t know how any person could rationally be opposed to raising visa quotas for low skilled workers so supply is in line with demand, unless they have a big ax to grind with hispanics.
“The poor whites don’t want the Mexicans to move in and take over but they also don’t want to work the low paying non-unionized cracker-factory jobs that are about the only line of employment in a lot of small Georgia towns.”
Poor whites have been convinced nearly everywhere in this country, urban and rural, that they alone, by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps will make it to the middle class, just like Horatio Alger, Bill O’Lieley and the legendary Bill Gates. Don’t believe them? Just ask them.
Poor whites have got to be the most alienated and disaffected group in America. They cry about mythical benefits given to brown people, but in fact, they are so used to deny their own beleaguered status and so stuck on the ‘do it yourself’ mantra that they refuse to partake of the same services, which could in fact help them.
They also make up I think, the most difficult portion of our culture to unionize or organize for change that would benefit them.
Here in NH, some local cops arrested two guys driving down the road who turned out to be illegal and the boys held them in a cell demanding that immigration come and take them away. There was quite an uproar, resulting I believe, the granting of the right of Dudley Dolittle to play INS officer. Its an important issue you know, with the brown people making up less then 2% of the total population here. Huge portions of the population here have never associated with a person of color in their entire lives and not because of social segregation, but because there has historically been very little immigration from the south.
Also, as Manchester NH is a refugee center, (granted long ago to give the mills a fresh line of workers) the local jail is loaded with detainees from various countries awaiting deportation, most will never have a trial or due process of any kind, just languishing for years.
And yes, its not just in Georgia where public servants think communicating in another language amounts to treason. Its a rather popular idea around here.
$1000 is only the visible cost. Let’s not forget transportation to all the meetings and hearings, costs of assembling the necessary documents, lost compensation if you’re legally (or illegally, for that matter) working a job that you’ll have to duck out of to get fingerprinted, get a health check and so on, not to mention the cost of an immigration lawyer. My (Canadian) boyfriend has spent thousands of dollars on the attempt to get his green card, and he’s a Caucasian engineer with higher education who speaks English.
For all those that who have mentioned VAWA self-petitioning as a way for this woman to avoid this awful fate- unfortunately, this case represents the severe limitations of VAWA. For one thing, someone who has divorced the abuser usually cannot self-peition for a greencard- especially if the divorce took place more than 2 years ago.
There is something called VAWA cancellation that exists for people who get caught up in deportation proceedings which has less strict rules about divorce and other requirements. The problem in this woman’s case is that she appears to have been deported in absentia (she wasn’t there, and I bet she didn’t know she had a hearing either- the courts are shockingly bad at notifying people). Therefore, any immigration attorney looking to get this woman into court would have to file a motion to reopen her case in the appropiate venue. They would also have to file a stay of deporation so that she wasn’t removed while the decision was pending. (which immigration will do if given half the chance- her removal from the country robs her of the ability to keep fighting the case and means less work for them.)
That’s a whole lot of work, and it has to be done very quickly, and there is an appalling shortage of lawyers (pro bono or legal aid) who do work for detained individuals at all, let alone more complex cases such as this one.
I do work with detained immigrants, and I must report that this woman’s case is not unique. I’ve worked with many women detained after calling the police because they were being assaulted. In theory, there is something called the U visa, which exists for undocumented individuals who are victims of a crime and help law enforcment. But the application process requires certification from said law enforcement. If the cops already hate you because you’re brown, they’re not going to fill out extra paperwork on your behalf.
In addition to what Crankyliberal posted, the U Visa currently does not exist. There is something called “U Visa Interim Relief” because despite authorizing visas for crime victims back in 2000, Immigration has not actually gotten around to, oh, issuing those visas.
She needs an immigration attorney. The commenter above who mentioned VAWA is absolutely right. It sounds like she’s eligible for at least Deferred Action (meaning protection from getting deported) and probably a work permit/green card at some point in the future. And could probably get a lot of the fees waived w/ decent legal help.
Amazingly, if she were in Texas I would be able to find a list of pro bono legal services for immigrants that specialize in EXACTLY these kinds of cases (like the Texas Civil Rights Project - they handle 300 or so of these at any given time) but who knows if Georgia has anyone that could help her?
A massive influx of illegal immigrants means that none of the laborers will be treated very well–more like replaceable meat-cogs than anything else. You need to go to the library and borrow a copy of The Jungle.
It is in the interest of big business to keep the labor pool cheap and repressed–they don’t care what color their indentured servants are and to that extent they are not racist. But that doesn’t mean you can paint opposition to shitty working conditions as “racist.”
Indeed. I won’t get back the money I spent on motels to ensure I was in line at 5am outside the DHS office.
This was not her second offense of being deported.
When she came into the country via Texas, she was apprehended and instructed to return for an Immigration Hearing in a month. She had continued on to Georgia and could not afford, financially to return to Texas to appear. A order of deportation was issued. Fast forward approx. 1 year….
She married a police officer from Carrollton, GA who, instead of obtaining an attorney and getting her legal status straightened out, held her status over her head, and was abusive towards her. He is the father of her youngest US born child. After about a year and a half of abuse, and aid from a womans shelter, she obtained a divorce from the abusive cop, and thanks to him, remains “undocumented”. Fast forward another year….
She is attacked by 3 roommates, 2 women and one male. The police arrest her and one of the other women, and at the initial bond hearing, the judge lets the other women, who is hispanic, but speaks good english, out / off.
Emelina was remanded into the custody of ICE because when she was fingerprinted, the old existing order of deportation came up.
The truly sad part in all of this, is the chidren, 8 yr. old Wendy, and 3 yr. old Karla. They are the ones who are suffering the most.
Karlas’ father has not paid child support in I don’t know how long, nor has he made any attempt to see his daughter, and now the girls are without their mother because she was attacked and had Wendy call 911 and report it.
Yes, Emelina Ramirez Bojorquez is pregnant again, by a man that she met and truly made her happy, whole and complete for the first time since I’ve known her, but that is another story.
Emelina and her girls don’t deserve this regardless of her Immigration Status. If her x-husband had of done the right thing, she would be legal, and what of her US Citizen daughter?
The kids world has already been ripped apart, their hearts torn out, they just want AND NEED their mother back.
Most of the information regarding Emelina can be found here:
> http://www.thesqueakywheel.com/complaints/2007/JUN/complaint14800.cfm and
> by following the links
> at the bottom of the complaint. You may also get info from:
> http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-deport29jul29,1,147… ,
> http://www.atlantalatino.com/detail.php?id=7732 ,
> http://www.cbs46.com:80/video/13560651/index.html ,
> http://www.mundohispanico.com/locales/content/locales/articulos/0705_art…
US Constitution / 14th Amendment: “…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Also note that Under the new Georgia law SB 529, it requires that a person booked into jail on a felony or DUI charge be verified for lawful status in the United States. Emelina was not booked on a felony, she was booked on domestic violence. Also, Immigration and Customs Enforcement will put a hold, not to extend beyond 48-hours, on any person of interest, but Emelina was held for 2 weeks in Carrollton before ICE took custody and moved her to Alabama.
We have an attorney for her and her attorney is looking at the Violence Against Women Act angle. The problem with that is the proof. Remember, her x-husband was a cop and therefore she did not call the cops for help. We do however have a couple of witnesses that witnesses various acts against her, like when he threw her and their daughter out of the car for example. But we still don’t know if that will be enough without police reports to back it up. Catch 22 unfortunately.
This was not her second offense of being deported.
When she came into the country via Texas, she was apprehended and instructed to return for an Immigration Hearing in a month. She had continued on to Georgia and could not afford, financially to return to Texas to appear. A order of deportation was issued. Fast forward approx. 1 year….
She married a police officer from Carrollton, GA who, instead of obtaining an attorney and getting her legal status straightened out, held her status over her head, and was abusive towards her. He is the father of her youngest US born child. After about a year and a half of abuse, and aid from a womans shelter, she obtained a divorce from the abusive cop, and thanks to him, remains “undocumented”. Fast forward another year….
She is attacked by 3 roommates, 2 women and one male. The police arrest her and one of the other women, and at the initial bond hearing, the judge lets the other women, who is hispanic, but speaks good english, out / off.
Emelina was remanded into the custody of ICE because when she was fingerprinted, the old existing order of deportation came up.
The truly sad part in all of this, is the chidren, 8 yr. old Wendy, and 3 yr. old Karla. They are the ones who are suffering the most.
Karlas’ father has not paid child support in I don’t know how long, nor has he made any attempt to see his daughter, and now the girls are without their mother because she was attacked and had Wendy call 911 and report it.
Yes, Emelina Ramirez Bojorquez is pregnant again, by a man that she met and truly made her happy, whole and complete for the first time since I’ve known her, but that is another story.
Emelina and her girls don’t deserve this regardless of her Immigration Status. If her x-husband had of done the right thing, she would be legal, and what of her US Citizen daughter?
The kids world has already been ripped apart, their hearts torn out, they just want AND NEED their mother back.
Most of the information regarding Emelina can be found here:
> http://www.thesqueakywheel.com/complaints/2007/JUN/complaint14800.cfm and
> by following the links
> at the bottom of the complaint. You may also get info from:
> http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-deport29jul29,1,147… ,
> http://www.atlantalatino.com/detail.php?id=7732 ,
> http://www.cbs46.com:80/video/13560651/index.html ,
> http://www.mundohispanico.com/locales/content/locales/articulos/0705_art…
US Constitution / 14th Amendment: “…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Also note that Under the new Georgia law SB 529, it requires that a person booked into jail on a felony or DUI charge be verified for lawful status in the United States. Emelina was not booked on a felony, she was booked on domestic violence. Also, Immigration and Customs Enforcement will put a hold, not to extend beyond 48-hours, on any person of interest, but Emelina was held for 2 weeks in Carrollton before ICE took custody and moved her to Alabama.
We have an attorney for her and her attorney is looking at the Violence Against Women Act angle. The problem with that is the proof. Remember, her x-husband was a cop and therefore she did not call the cops for help. We do however have a couple of witnesses that witnesses various acts against her, like when he threw her and their daughter out of the car for example. But we still don’t know if that will be enough without police reports to back it up. Catch 22 unfortunately.
Nah, you’re missing the point, people.
It’s not that she was a woman, or brown, or illegal.
It’s that she was a police officer’s abused spouse.
This kind of thing happens to men all the time. Men who have not paid child support and call the police over a crime against them get arrested when the police see a warrant show up on the computer system.
Part of the pain of breaking the law is people who know you are breaking the law get to take advantage of you
If we follow the implied rule here that if you make a crimminal complaint you are “safe” from arrest, then all one has to do to avoid a warrant is to claim a crime was committed against them.
Think about this guys.
f we follow the implied rule here that if you make a crimminal complaint you are “safe” from arrest
If you bothered to read the original post, Miller, the issue wasn’t that the police dealt with the assault but were unfortunately obligated to throw this woman back into the Kafkaesque immigration system afterward.
Now if she were undocumented and from say Portugal, they wouldn’t be yelling about her status, it would be the beating she took from her roomate while pregnant and her exhusband who didn’t get status taken care of.
They only care if your white . . . how many other girls have disappeared since Holloway but have received no little to no coverage and are non-white? Yelling about being undocumented is only a cover . . .
Is there anything pending on the ex about haboring an undocumented illegal alien? Just marrying a US citizen does not make a resident alien legal - as my exhuband found out. For all his faults as soon as he understood what the law was he busted his tail to get his Mexican wife’s status changed to Legal resident alien …
He even threatened me to give him copies of our divorce papers cuz he has “lost” them. I would have given him copies anyway, he didn’t need to threaten me.
Hey my niece couldn’t get a visa to come to a wedding in San Diego next month. The reason: She didn’t have a means of supporting herself.
Wha?
She wasn’t staying, she is just visiting for 1 month.
But I thought ICE wanted aliens to vist and then go home. Are they saying that they think she’ll skip?
She’s 21, in college and living at home. She has a life back home - And she’s devestated.
Almost everyone else got visas but her. My BILs passport hasn’t come back yet. But even if he does get a visa he is not going to use it and stay with my niece as a supportive move. He is requesting his passport back so he can get visas to go “some where else” - so she get’s to do something special.
Petey Wheatstraw makes the excellent point that beyond this woman’s particular suffering this is a design of the economic system in which we live: it has always been to keep low wage workers devalued and their status threatened. That was was slavery was all about.
When Al Gore debated Ross Perot over NAFTA and Perot gave his famous line about that sucking sound being American jobs disappearing he was half-right. Manufacturing jobs have disappeared overseas. But the trade deals have destroyed the small Mexican farm by undercutting the price of corn. The oligarchy of Mexico is protected by siphoning off a potential source of social unrest, the undocumented workforce coming into America further weakens the American working class. Both ruling classes win!
As an aside, from my personal experience as a labor organizer in San Francisco (admittedly not the same as the Deep South) most whites (as were most of any ethnic or racial background) were quite agreeable to being unionized and readily recognized their lot as the same as other workers. There were always a few immigrants who thought they could do better by cutting their own deals, but it had more to do with their individual class presumptions from their former status in the old country. In the eighties there was some hesitation from people who had come from a country (like Central America) where union-organizing was a capital offense, but mostly people understood how unions could protect them on the work floor and in contract negotiations.
The sixty-year war against organized labor in this country, of which trade law is a major part, destroys both the working class here and the working class in foreign countries. When we end up debating just the execrable treatment of a woman who is here “illegally” we have avoided all the history that has put the woman in the position we now find her. Instead of seeking to blame southern whites for feeling their value as workers is being reduced (why is supply and demand so hard for some to understand?) better to understand and attack the real problem.
Clytemnestra, your niece’s (well documented, it’ll have to be) college attendance and other ties to her home country should be enough evidence that she’s not planning to skip and overstay the visa. yes, what they’re saying is exactly that they think she might skip and stay here. what she wants to do is convince them she has enough of a life to go back to that she won’t stay, and that should do it… but when dealing with U.S. immigration, the difference between theory and practice gets famously large.
“means of support” for a temporary visit could include affidavits from whoever she’ll be staying with that they have incomes and/or property enough to house and feed her while she’s visiting. (my mother-in-law signed such for me when i filed for my green card and work permit. they should be expired by now, finally… she had to put a ten-year time limit on her affidavits, because i was immigrating.) if your niece is staying in hotels, then proving she holds enough cash to pay for them should do it. return tickets, if arriving by air, are good too.
Well, the update indicates that the likeliest reason the Alabama cops treated her like shit is because as usual they were on the side of their fellow cops against ordinary citizens. They’re not fellow citizens any more, they’re heavily-armed alien occupation troops, loyal only to each other. These days a cop will stand there and let another cop murder you right before his eyes, and not only will he not raise a finger, he’ll lie to any later investigators, and likely as not offer to help dispose of your corpse as well.
“To protect and serve” themselves.
Go read the dirt on Carroll county and it ilegal immigration.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=celestebonds
http://carrollcountyburrocrap.bravehost.com/