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Tag: deportation

  • Diane Guerrero Laments Losing Her Family

    Diane Guerrero Laments Losing Her Family

    Orange is the New Black star Diane Guerrero opened up about losing her parents, who were deported to Colombia, on CNN Monday on November 17.

    Guerrero, 28, who plays a character named Maritza Ramos on the Netflix-produced hit, lost her parents at 14, and pushed on with the kindness of basic strangers to succeed.

    Recalling her confusion on the day her parents disappeared, Guerrero commented, “I was always scared that my parents were going to be gone. They would remind me every day. I knew my dad had like this whole system. ‘Here’s where I hide this in case anything happens. And, you know, don’t be scared and know that you’re going to be okay and that we love you very much and that we wish that this situation was different for us, but this is our reality.’ So, yes, that day I had this feeling.”

    Guerrero added that she’d called her parents “a million times” the day they were put into separate custody. The ingenue reminisced, “I got home and their cars were there and dinner was started and the lights were on. But I couldn’t find them. So, yes, it was really hard. That was really hard. And then the neighbors came in and…. They were just like, ‘I’m so sorry but your parents were taken away.’”

    Guerrero recalls going into survival mode after realizing she was alone. The actress commented, “I remember I hid under the bed because I was afraid that somebody was going to come for me. I don’t know who that someone was, but I was just so scared. You know, it’s like, what do you – what do you do? And then I’m so scared for them, like what they’re going through, you know. My parents are going to jail, and for what? You know, I didn’t consider them criminals.”

    Guerrero still sees here parents annually, when she visits Colombia. “It’s tough, you know,” the starlet said, adding that, “we’ve been separated for so long. I feel like sometimes we don’t know each other and that’s difficult because I’ve grown up without them and there’s things about them that are new that I don’t recognize and it just – it hurts.”

    Orange is the New Black has been renewed for a third season, and on July 10, 2014, the series garnered 12 Primetime Emmy Award nominations

  • Elizabeth Smart Talks California Woman’s Kidnapping

    Elizabeth Smart is speaking out about the kidnapped California woman who came forward to authorities on Monday, saying she had been kidnapped and held for the past ten years. While many people question why the as-yet unidentified woman never tried escaping her captor, Smart says there is no way to know the kind of mental stronghold the kidnapper likely had on her.

    This California woman was drugged and kidnapped by her mom’s former boyfriend at the age of 15. An illegal immigrant from Mexico, he apparently told her frequently that going to authorities would result in her deportation. He managed to change both his and her names and birth dates frequently and married her under an assumed name. He fathered a child with her a couple of years ago. The alleged kidnapper, Isidro Garcia, was taken into custody and charged.

    Elizabeth Smart was held captive against her will for nine months when she, too, was just a teenager. She had the following to say about this California woman and her ordeal.

    “I’m praying for her,” Smart said during a recent interview. “I’m hoping the very best for her and just very, very happy to hear some good news.”

    “We don’t know what these evil people are holding over them— whether it’s their families’ lives, their lives, whatever it is,” she added. “We just don’t know.”

    Following her kidnapping ordeal, Elizabeth Smart faced questions about why she didn’t escape despite several opportunities to have done so.

    “People just didn’t understand what I was going through, and that is true of all of these other strong women who are survivors,” Smart said, as she referenced the case of three women freed in Ohio last year after more than a decade in captivity at the hands of Ariel Castro.

    It is certainly unfathomable that someone can be held against their will for a decade. It is testament to the power of the human mind which is often stronger than the human body. Our minds can hold us captive through fear, which was no doubt at the root of this woman remaining under her captive’s spell for so many years.

    Image via YouTube

  • Chuck Schumer Pushes Drug and Immigration Reform

    Lately, much attention has been brought to the plight that is heroin addiction here in the United States, with much unfortunate thanks going to the death of actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who died of a heroin overdose last month.

    The attention to heroin addiction is much-needed: Heroin abuse is the fastest-growing addiction in the United States, with first time abusers increasing 60% over the last decade and heroin-related deaths increasing 45 percent over the past four or five years.

    One United States Senator is fed up with such abuse and has decided to propose legislation to combat the issue: Chuck Schumer.

    Schumer is a Democratic Senator from the state of New York. Wednesday, Schumer announced plans to create a new program called DrugStat that would be a state-wide database tracking heroin and other drug-related statistics such as crime, overdoses, hospital admissions, and deaths.

    “The victims of heroin use are too often our kids, full of potential, whose lives are altered in an instant by these terrible and addictive drugs. More must be done to curtail the spike in heroin use and other drugs, and rescue more New York residents from the bane of drug addiction,” stated Schumer in his address.

    Last year, heroin claimed the lives of 65 people in New York alone – more than double the 29 deaths reported in 2012.

    Drug abuse is not the only aspect of Schumer’s platform, though. Lately, Schumer has become more and more outspoken against immigrant deportation. Schumer’s latest statements on immigration reform calls for President Obama to halt deportation for certain populations of immigrants:

    “We remain focused on passing a balanced immigration bill that secures our borders and fixes a broken system. But if the House recesses in September without passing immigration reform, in October the administration should stop deporting hard-working and law-abiding people who would be covered by the Senate bill.”

    Schumer wishes to only deport those who are convicted felons, repeat offenders, or came to the United States after January 1, 2012. He makes the third member of the Gang of Eight to speak out against deportation within the past week.

    Obama’s deportation practices have earned him the label of “deporter-in-chief” from the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Latino-advocacy group.

    President Obama himself spoke on his opinion of the label in a town-hall program sponsored by two of the largest Hispanic television broadcasters, Telemundo and Univision: “I am the champion-in-chief of comprehensive immigration reform. What I’ve said in the past remains true: Until Congress passes a new law I am constrained in what I can do.”

    Schumer and the rest of the Gang of Eight hope that those constraints on the President’s powers over deportation practices lessens soon.

    Image via Facebook

  • Irish Nanny Charged in Baby Death Requests Bail

    New evidence in favor of an Irish nanny accused of murder may be a turning point in the case of a deceased Cambridge, Mass., baby girl.

    Aisling Brady McCarthy, 35, is facing charges in the death of 1-year-old Rehma Sabir, who allegedly succumbed to head injuries at the time of her supervision.

    McCarthy’s attorneys presented new substantial medical evidence on Friday to Woburn’s Superior Court. It apparently contradicts when Sabir sustained other additional injuries.

    According to Boston.com, Attorney Marian Ryan received validation from a medical expert that the baby “suffered serious injuries to her vertebrae while traveling with her family overseas in the weeks before [she] was fatally injured on Jan. 14, 2013.”

    Defense attorneys are more than certain that someone else is to blame for Sabir’s death, especially since McCarthy was not the caretaker during the time of her affliction.

    “This woman is innocent and is sitting in jail,” Attorney Melinda Thompson told the newspaper.

    However, Assistant District Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald thinks that new evidence will fail to change the timing of the beating that led up to Sabir’s death. (image)

    “There is no question that the injury was sustained within the seven hours where the defendant was the sole caretaker,” the D.A. said.

    McCarthy is currently without bail. Her attorneys have asked Middlesex Superior Court Judge S. Jane Haggerty to set bail for $5,000 with the addition of a GPS locator.

    The judge did not give an official decision but instead scheduled a conference hearing for Feburary 21.

    If released, McCarthy faces deportation for immigration violations within her visa waiver program. Regulations state that if a person stays longer than 90 days, then the Department of Homeland Security has the right to take custody and remove them from the country.

    “She was in this country illegally, she came to this country 10 years ago through some visa waiver program. If you violate that and do not leave when you’re supposed to leave, you’re subject to deportation,” said Fitzgerald.

    Thompson disproved Fitzgerald’s claims and said that McCarthy will not face deportation since she handed over her passport to authorities following her arrest.

    The official trial will begin on April 7. Only then will McCarthy’s fate be decided between two options: to serve time or get the boot.

    Image via  YouTube

     

  • Obama Heckler Complains About Immigration Laws

    A young, undocumented immigrant, who is also a graduate student from South Korea, directly called out to President Obama at a speech the Commander-in-Chief was giving at the Betty Ann Ong Chinese Recreation Center in San Francisco on Monday.

    The student, standing behind Obama, said, “Our families are separated. I need your help! You have a power to stop deportation for all undocumented immigrants in this country.” 

    President Obama refused security’s attempt to remove the man, directly responding, “Actually, I don’t. And that’s why we’re here.”

    The president continued, addressing the man’s question of Obama’s authority when it comes to the deportation of illegal aliens in the U.S.

    “Now, what you need to know, when I’m speaking as president of the United States and I come to this community, is that if, in fact, I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, then I would do so,” Obama said. “But we’re also a nation of laws. That’s part of our tradition. And so the easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like I can do something by violating our laws. And what I’m proposing is the harder path, which is to use our democratic processes to achieve the same goal that you want to achieve. But it won’t be as easy as just shouting. It requires us lobbying and getting it done.”

    The president’s anti-deportation activists have made clear that they believe the Obama administration has contributed to the removal of many immigrants – and they’re correct. This administration has ordered and seen-out the deportation of over 2 million illegals in America.

    Frank Sherry, founder of America’s Voice, says, “I think he overstates the case that he doesn’t have the authority. He may not have authority to give people a path to citizenship…but does he have the authority to have DHS implement his priorities and reflect his values? Yes, and that’s not happening.”

    Obama has been known to twist the law for his own personal gain, without first clearing it with Congress, such as the steps he took to implement his own Affordable Care Act.

    Other supporters of immigration reform believe that Obama has more pull than he is using, as well. They say that the president at least has the power to intervene and postpone actions in the judicial system being taken to remove the illegals. Now, younger immigrants are protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which was enacted by the Department of Homeland Security last year.

    Main image courtesy CNN via YouTube.

  • Disgraced Newspaper Magnate Conrad Black Released from Prison

    Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, the Canadian-born member of the British House of Lords, was released from the minimum security Federal Correctional Institution in Miami, where he was serving out a sentence for fraud obstruction of justice. He is presently U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in lieu of a possible deportation to Canada, after serving an additional 13 months tacked on to his original sentence of 29.

    Black once controlled Hollinger International, Inc. which published major newspapers including The Daily Telegraph (UK), Chicago Sun Times (U.S.), Jerusalem Post (Israel), National Post (Canada), and hundreds of small community papers across the U.S. Black was convicted of defrauding Hollinger out of roughly $60 million , along with partner David Radler, and was originally sentenced to 6.5 years in prison.

    Black, 67, has said in the past he seeks to move to Toronto to be with his wife, Barbara Amiel, and was granted a year-long permission for entry into the country effective May 1st, after previously renouncing his citizenship in 2001. Though, Canadians don’t appear to be too excited about Lord Black’s return – NDP leader Thomas Mulcair recently denounced the Canadian government for allowing “the British criminal Conrad Black” back in.