Thread: Why was 4-year-old American girl deported?

San Diego (CNN) -- Under our system, two things are crystal clear: Law enforcement agencies are required to treat children with more care than adults, and U.S. citizens have certain rights that are not to be abridged -- including the right to due process.

Just don't try telling any of that to the parents of Emily Ruiz. They know better. Those principles didn't apply in the case of the 4-year-old from Brentwood, New York, who -- after traveling to Guatemala to visit relatives with her grandfather -- was denied entry into the United States on March 11 by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and instead sent back to Guatemala.

That is no way to treat a U.S. citizen. You see, while both of her parents are illegal immigrants, Emily was born in the United States and so she is a U.S. citizen. That is supposed to mean something in this country. At the very least, it should mean that authorities shouldn't have done anything more than greet the little girl with a polite and sincere: "Welcome home."

Instead, according to her family's attorney, Emily was detained alone for several hours at Dulles International Airport while authorities tried to figure out what to do and while her grandfather was treated for what seemed to be a panic attack.

"It's outrageous," David Sperling, the family's attorney, told me. "Effectively, she (Emily) was deported. They treated her like an 'anchor baby,' like a second-class citizen. I can't imagine that they would treat any other U.S. citizen this way."

Speaking of so-called anchor babies, an offensive term used by some on the right to describe the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants who supposedly keep their parents anchored in the United States, this case shows that the whole concept is bogus. Emily couldn't even keep herself anchored in the United States, let alone her parents.

I asked Sperling if he believed that Emily was treated shoddily because she is Latina.

"Absolutely," he said. "If this was a Caucasian girl from some European country, this would never have happened."

According to multiple accounts, here is what happened. At the end of their stay in Guatemala, Emily and her grandfather boarded a plane to return to New York. The grandfather had a work visa and a notarized letter from Emily's parents authorizing him to travel with her. The girl had a U.S. passport. But because of bad weather, the flight was diverted to Washington.

When the two landed there, and went through the processing for re-entry in the United States, it was discovered that the grandfather's visa was no longer valid and that he had a prior arrest for illegal entry in the 1990s. Agents took him into custody and prepared to deport him back to Guatemala.

But what about Emily? When she and her grandfather didn't get off the plane in New York, her father, Leonel, called the airline, and a representative told him that U.S. immigration officials had detained his loved ones in Washington. So then the father called the immigration officials. And, when he was asked about his own immigration status and that of his wife's, he acknowledged that they were both undocumented.

According to Sperling, the father then was given a choice: Emily could be left in a children's detention facility or sent back to Guatemala with her grandfather. The father said he would prefer that Emily stay with her grandfather, and so Emily was deported from the country -- her country.

But oddly enough, the attorney said, the one option the father wasn't given was to go pick up his daughter in Washington. That's what he planned to do, he told The New York Times, but he was never given the chance. (The same article said that officials at Customs and Border Protection gave Ruiz the opportunity to collect her at the airport.)

Officials with Customs and Border Protection declined to comment to me on the record. The best they would do is a statement sent to news agencies declaring that "CBP strives to reunite U.S. citizen children with their parents," without actually saying that it happened in this case.

Sperling told me he plans to travel to Guatemala next week to retrieve Emily.

The idea of an illegal immigrant voluntarily meeting with U.S. immigration officials is not as far-fetched as you might think. Leonel Ruiz is an illegal immigrant, but he is also a father. Besides, if he had come forward, according to immigration lawyers and immigration enforcement officials I've spoke to over the years, he might not have been apprehended and deported. Immigration officials have wide discretion, and they don't have to deport every illegal immigrant with whom they come into contact.

Don't lose sight of the facts through the PR. Or is it CYA? Even if it's true that that Emily's father gave permission for the government to send his daughter back to Guatemala, that doesn't let U.S. officials off the hook. Emily is a minor, but she is also a U.S. citizen with a right to due process -- what Thomas Jefferson called an "inalienable" right granted her not by her father but by her creator.

It's not fair or appropriate for Customs and Border Protection to pawn off the awesome responsibility of whether Emily stays in the United States or goes back to Guatemala to the father just so they can wash their hands of this case and claim they were just following orders.

There are established rules and procedures for how U.S. immigration enforcement agencies are supposed to deal with minors, and those guidelines are set by years of legal precedent. Most of them deal with minors who are in the country illegally and yet still have rights. U.S. citizens have even more rights.

The unanswered question in this case is whether Customs and Border Protection followed those rules and its own procedures and did everything it could to reunite Emily with her family. It doesn't look like it. Rather it looks like U.S. immigration officials couldn't wait to get this girl on a plane and get her off their hands.

What has happened to our country? Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano seems to brag about the Obama administration's record number of deportations every few weeks, to counter claims that her department is soft on illegal immigration. Has the administration so depleted the pool of illegal immigrants that it's moved on to deporting U.S. citizens?

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs should look into this case, and the Department of Homeland Security should launch an internal investigation. And if it is ultimately decided that Customs and Border Protection officials acted hastily and irresponsibly, they should lose their jobs --as swiftly and as easily as Emily Ruiz lost the freedom that was her birthright.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ruben Navarrette Jr.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/...rted/?hpt=Sbin

Okay, my head explodes over the misreporting/opinion/news story piece here.

The girl was not deported. She (I'm sure with her parent's approval) was traveling with her grandfather (who was illegally entering the country). Her illegal parents could have picked her up from the airport/customs, however, they, being illegal, were afraid that they would be deported. The girl could have stayed in the U.S. but her parents feared that if they didn't "claim" her, she possibly could have been put up for adoption. She was not denied entry into this country nor was she deported. Her parents made the decision to send her back to Guatemala with her grandfather, rather than risk the consequences from their own illegal actions.

Her illegal parents have now put this girl into this predicament. Her parents can go and join their daughter in Guatemala and the girl (U.S. Citizen) can return to the U.S. when she is no longer a minor or have the parentally approved proper legal guardianship for her to be here.

Boohoo

Nope, definitely not deported. This story made me think of something I saw this weekend while I was at my Nanas. There was a crown vic sitting in a parking lot w/ "They Can't Deport Us All" across the windshield. I guess not, but clearly we're gonna try.

The "They Can't Deport us All" is a song by Chingo Bling a rapper out of Texas. He is a friend of my Sons. I hate all the illegals here but he has some funny stuff.

http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/stor...061747,00.html

Her illegal parents have now put this girl into this predicament. Her parents can go and join their daughter in Guatemala and the girl (U.S. Citizen) can return to the U.S. when she is no longer a minor or have the parentally approved proper legal guardianship for her to be here.

Absolutely !

Okay, my head explodes over the misreporting/opinion/news story piece here...

Bias ?? What Bias ??

NY girl in middle of immigration row returns to US
Frank Eltman, Associated Press – Wed Mar 30, 3:06 am ET

Emily Ruiz, a 4-year-old American citizen at the center of an immigration dispute, returned to the United States from Guatemala on Wednesday, according to her family's attorney, who accompanied her. Emily's parents, who live on New York's Long Island, say the girl had spent several months in Guatemala. Her grandfather tried to bring her back to the U.S. this month but was refused entry because of a prior immigration violation, and they were both sent back to Guatemala.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials say the girl's parents, who are illegal aliens, opted to allow their daughter to return to Guatemala rather than pick her up, possibly concerned they would confront questions about their own residency status.

The parents, through their attorney, contend that's not so. "The CBP spokesman's statement is wrong," said attorney David Sperling. "The parents were not given the option to be reunited."

Emily arrived just after midnight Tuesday in New York, where she had a tearful reunion with her brother and parents, who hadn't seen her in more than five months, Sperling said. "We are so happy that Emily has finally been reunited with her family in the United States, where she belongs," he said.

Her saga began March 11, when she traveled with her grandfather to the United States. Their flight to Kennedy Airport in New York was diverted to Dulles International outside Washington. It was there that immigration authorities detained the grandfather, who has not been identified. Because he had an immigration infraction two decades ago, he was denied entry into the country.

This is where the accounts of what happened diverge.

"The parents were offered the chance to pick up the child but elected to have her return to Guatemala with her grandfather," CBP spokesman Lloyd Easterling said in a statement. The agency, he said, "strives to reunite U.S. citizen children with their parents."

Sperling, the Ruiz attorney, argues that Emily's parents were told the two options were that she would either have to return to Guatemala or be placed in the custody of officials in Virginia. The girl's father, Leonel Ruiz, opted to have Emily return to Central America with her grandfather.

The CBP spokesman declined to comment further when asked about the family's claims.

Jeanne A. Butterfield, a former executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association who is advising Sperling, said she was dubious of arguments that the girl's parents feared questions about their own immigration status. "If that's the case, why would the father take his story national?" she asked, noting Leonel Ruiz has been interviewed by Univision and The New York Times. "He told the story, had his picture published. He is easily findable. I think it only buttresses the father's credibility."

Butterfield said she thinks a CBP staffer made a mistake by having the girl sent to Guatemala. "This is not a blanket policy. It just lifts up the culture asserted by some that if parents are undocumented they have less than full rights. It allows an agent to make a decision like this and feel like it's OK."

U.S. Rep. Steve Israel, whose district includes the Ruizes' hometown of Brentwood, was incensed by the ordeal and called for an investigation of what happened. "This bureaucratic overreach and utter failure of commonsense has left a little girl — a U.S. citizen, no less — stranded thousands of miles from her parents," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110330/...rl_immigration

The little girl had already spent 4 months with family in another country - she left with her grandfather to return to that family - how does that equate to "stranded" ? Who is saying that the father is the one who "went national" ? Considering that they are declining to speak directly to reporters, I think someone else saw this was a "human interest story".

"We are so happy that Emily has finally been reunited with her family in the United States, where she belongs'

None of them belong here. Emily belongs with her parents, her parents belong in Guatemala.

"It just lifts up the culture asserted by some that if parents are undocumented they have less than full rights"

They don't! They are ILLEGAL! Why is that so hard for some to understand?

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What a ridiculous story. If the parents are illegal, they should be deported immediately. If the grandfather is illegal, he should be deported. If the girl is an anchor baby, then she can stay with her parents in Guatemala until she is 18, then she can apply to come back to the US.
Why can't the US government work for the citizens of the US who pay their bills, instead of every leech who preys on our society?

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Is she on free lunch, free healthcare, etc. because parents has no SSN, declared no income/low income?

This is how it is in California. Thus, continued onslaught of illegal immigration contribute to California's budget deficits. And, the state government is looking forward to increase taxes on US citizens legal residents in California to close the budget gap. NO MORE OF THIS. ENOUGH ALREADY!

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Memo to this maddening country ... people who don't leaglly belong here are throwing mud in your face. This needs to stop. Immigrants are a good thing...legal ones that is. And to all the idiots from La Raza and the likes....what exactly will you tell all the millions of hispanics and other groups who came here legally and spent the time and money doing it legally? "schucks you didn't have to do that"!

Tough stuff going on right now and that young lady deserves better but what exactly is the reason our lame arse govt allows people like her parents to simply stick their middle fingers up to all of us by coming here illegally? That needs to be addressed because that will stop the madness of people illegally coming in the first place and these poor kids who have no choice. All our kids at a young age rely on us....don't let that fact cloud up your mind with anger.

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This whole story is actually about Illegal Immigrants using an anchor baby to bring another illegal immigrant (her grandfather) into the United States. The attempt failed. Instead of following the law and deporting the Illegal Immigrant parents, we get this sob story.

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What part of the word illegal do these people not understand. Pack up the entire family and ship them back to their own country. You are not here legally and you need to be shipped back. I am sick to death of the free loading that goes on in this country. I just wonder who is paying for the lawyer?

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"U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials say the girl's parents, who are illegal aliens, opted to allow their daughter to return to Guatemala rather than pick her up, possibly concerned they would confront questions about their own residency status."

If the Border Patrol would read the article they would know that the ILLEGAL ALIENS are living on Long Island. Why don't they go there, arrest them and deport them?

I swear, the illegal alien problem is being treated like a football game. The Border Patrol will do everything they can to stop the invaders from crossing the border (goal line) but once they get across they score a type of "Residency" and the Border Patrol goes back to playing defense. We need to hunt theses invaders down, arrest them, take DNA samples to prove they were here at least once and then deport them. Catch them again and if the DNA database says this is their second offence then lock them up in a chain gang for 10 years. There's plenty of road work maintainance to do in this country.

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I like the way the author of the article starts out with a lie, the little girl just because she is born here is not nor ever will be a us citizen, the adment to the us constut, was passed in 1868 and had nothing to do with illegals it was for black slaves and indians who left the resveation to be treated as us citizens it was never!!!!!! intended to be a silly loop hole for illegals, the ind who passed the admin hated latin america and would have never passed any law which allowed the wave of illegals in the country, in fact most of the people who wrote the admin opposed the mass of east europeans and italians comming in the nation.

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Time to ammend the 14th ammendment!

Or start playing it to the letter of the law... While the child is a US Citizen, the parents are not. Either the child goes up for adoption or into Fostercare until she is 16 and can decide for herself whether she wants to move to a foreign country to live with her parents or if she wants to remain in foster care. Her parents are ILLEGAL wether they copulated in the US or not.

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I can't believe I live in a country where there is a news story like this, we have the names and locations of people who have committed crimes, and we are supposed to apologize because the kid's grandfather was trying to sneak into the country illegally (which he already got caught doing once) by using this poor child.

Just because the child is a citizen (because of a misinterpretation of the law, she's really not, but we need a sane judge to actually read the constitutional passage and figure that out) doesn't mean that gives her family free rights as well. I hate to say it, but other posters are right - I wonder what type of aid these people are already milking us for, and they still get the last laugh - they try to sneak Grandpa in the country by pimping out their child, and yet they want US to apologize for it!

I'm sorry, reunite them, by all means - then stick them all on a plane home. What part of illegal do these idiots enforcing these laws (or not enforcing them) not understand? THEY BROKE THE LAW. DEPORTATION.

I am not one of the thumpers on here going on about immigration or Hispanics or what have you. I'm all for finding solutions instead of just stamping our feet. But these people just gave us this great big middle finger, and WE are apologizing to THEM. No other country let's you pull these shenanigans. It's no wonder we can't pay for healthcare, when we spend all our money going to war with other countries and not only let known illegals stay (great message that shows - come on up, pop out a kid, you're golden South America!), but we apologize to them for the inconvenience.

This honestly makes me sick. It has nothing to do with race, it has to do with COMMITTING CRIMES. If I committed a crime, and someone wrote a news article about it with my name and location, THEY WOULD COME ARREST ME. Why do these people get rights that as an American citizen I don't even get???

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Whoever has provided employment to the parents should have their assets seized, be fined heavily and serve a mandatory prison sentence for each employment and tax evasion violation. These sleaze-balls are the root of the problem. No jobs - no illegals. It's not a hard problem to solve.. Let's go after the real criminals in this!!

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And yet they think nothing of separating american parents and their american child when the american parent breaks the law...