Afghan war widower caught in 'chronic problem': wrongful deportation



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"This is a chronic problem," said Scott Shuchart, who worked at the Department of Homeland Security's Civil Rights Bureau from 2010 to 2018. "The number of cases that fall between the cracks of this system can be very low in percentage, but it is certainly not trivial as a raw number of cases. "

Mr. Gonzalez Carranza was lucky, according to his lawyer.

The problems began last January when Mr. Gonzalez Carranza, who had entered the country illegally, turned to his lawyer to renew a temporary residence permit in the United States that had been granted on the basis of his military service. deceased wife. They learned that a removal procedure had been initiated even though the license was still valid, but he had not heard about it because the notices had been sent to an old address. A few months earlier, he had been ordered to deport him.

Knowing that he could be arrested at any time, Mr. Gonzalez Carranza and his lawyer acted quickly to prepare documents to stop the deportation. But before the papers were filed, immigration officers arrested Mr. Gonzalez Carranza on April 8, who arrested him while he was traveling to work. He recounted that he remembered flashing lights, then "many cops around me pointing guns, shouting, saying 'Open the door! »»

Mr. Gonzalez Carranza entered the United States for the first time at the age of 14 and settled with an uncle in Phoenix. Rather than going to school, he started working for a carpet manufacturing company and met the woman who became his wife, Barbara Vieyra, in a teenager's nightclub.

The couple moved in together, had their daughter Evelyn and they got married. Shortly after, Mrs. Vieyra joined the army to help support her family. She served in a military police unit in Korea and was 22 years old when she was killed in Kunar province in Afghanistan, according to press reports.

Mr. Gonzalez Carranza remained in the United States without a permanent legal status, sharing custody of his daughter with his wife's parents. The military service of his wife should have allowed him to stay legally in the country until 20 April 2019.

He could not say anything to the officers who had come to arrest him and expel him. Mr. Gonzalez Carranza said that he was spending time inside a Mexican government office during his days spent in Mexico because he was close enough to the border for his phone American laptop still works and that he can talk with his lawyer. He slept in a migrant shelter, mostly populated by people waiting to seek asylum in the United States.

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