They have messed up my life

Leon Haughton loves honey in his tea. That's why, during his Christmas visit to relatives in Jamaica, he stopped regularly and bought three bottles of his favorite roadside kiosk before returning home to Maryland.

It was a routine purchase for him until he landed at Baltimore Airport. Customs officers arrested Haughton and the police arrested him, accusing him of smuggling honey but methamphetamine.

Haughton spent nearly three months in jail before all charges were withdrawn and two sets of laboratory tests for law enforcement revealed that no controlled substance was contained in the bottles. .

At that time, Haughton, who, according to his lawyer, did not have a criminal record, had lost both his jobs as a cleaner and a construction worker.

"They ruined everything in my life," Haughton said. "I want the world to know that the system is not good.If I did not have strong people around me, they would probably leave me in prison.You are lost in the system."

A few months after his release, he is only fully rebuilding his life after the setback that devastated him and his family of six children.

Haughton's status as a legal permanent resident with a green card has complicated. Because he was arrested at an airport for alleged drug crimes, his case triggered a federal detention order that extended his stay in jail, according to court testimony.

Twenty days after his arrest, a state police laboratory test to detect the presence of drugs in the bottles was revealed negative. Yet the 45-year-old father spent two months behind bars before the latest charges were dropped after a second go-ahead in a federal lab test.

"Someone dropped the ball somewhere," said Haughton's lawyer, Terry Morris. "An innocent man spent 82 days in jail for importing honey into the United States."

After landing at Baltimore-Washington's Thurgood Marshall International Airport on December 29 at around 10 pm, US Customs and Border Protection stopped Haughton for more than two hours before the Maryland Transportation Authority Police did not handcuff him, according to the indictment documents. The bottles with golden screw caps identified "honey" in his bag, he would have revealed, had been tested positive for methamphetamine in a drug field.

Haughton has fainted. The police took him to the hospital. Then they took him to jail.

Every year for almost 10 years that Haughton lives in Prince George County, this Jamaican goes on the island in December to visit his mother. The green card holder had no trouble returning to Maryland until last year, when a K-9 unit started sniffing its bag.

Haughton thought the dog was interested in his chicken leftovers. But Haughton said he quickly noticed agents and officers whispering before disappearing behind a screen. Upon their return, a man took Haughton away. His bag did not come with him.

According to the police, Beny, a K-9, conducted a "random sweep" and was alerted about possible drugs.

"In the bag were three large plastic bottles labeled as" honey "of allegedly liquid methamphetamine," said load documents.

Haughton and Morris claim that he was stereotyped because of his race. The authorities, according to Haughton 's lawyer, asked him about "a big conspiracy to smuggle drugs and Jamaican gangs".

"I'm 100% sure that I do not have drugs," he said. Haughton remembers, insisting that his agents act. "I only have honey."

Haughton had abandoned the sugar years ago but was drinking honey with his tea. He prefers honey from a particular bee farm in Jamaica because it is cheaper and more "pure" and always asks his friends traveling to the island to bring him back.

Carey Phillips, Haughton's girlfriend, stated that, when he did not return from his trip to Jamaica, she badumed that he had extended his stay as he had done in the past and could not contact her. But a few days later, she received a letter from the Anne Arundel County Detention Center in Haughton.

"I was shocked," Phillips said. "It seems unreal to me, if someone commits a crime, you understand, but if there is nothing, that time is lost."

Haughton, who faces at least 25 years in prison, appeared in court for a re-examination of his bail, two days after his arrest. A public defender at the hearing said that Haughton had no previous convictions and had lived in the area for nine years. A judge agreed to let him go on the job, in court files and in court records.

But more than three weeks later, Haughton was still behind bars.

Drug charges have triggered detention orders from customs officials, said Haughton's attorney. Although the Maryland State Police Laboratory returned test results on bottles stating "no CDS detected" on Jan. 17, and although prosecutors dropped the count of the three drug offenses on March 23, In January, Haughton was still facing a charge of possession offense controlled dangerous substance, or CDS.

Haughton asked to be released on January 24 during his second bail review, but Anne Arundel County District Court Judge, Laura M. Robinson, feared that he would not appear for his trial.

"The problem is that I can not let him go to ICE because he could be deported," Robinson said, according to an audio recording. "Even if I released you, you would still not necessarily be released, you would be in federal custody."

Haughton was sent back to prison, appearing in court for a third bail review on February 5.

Morris, Haughton's lawyer, told the judge that Haughton should be released because the immigration services detainee had been triggered by the crime charges, which had been dropped. The federal government was in the middle of last winter's closure and Morris said he could not reach anyone at Immigration and Customs Enforcement to lift the inmate.

"The thing that will end up happening, and they'll realize that's it, it's just darling," Morris said during the bail review. "He's been in prison for 30 days for having darling."

Robinson said that she would consider releasing Haughton under his pledge, but only if the federal government rescinded the detention order.

"The inmate of ICE is really prohibitive," said Robinson. "… I'm kind of against the ICE detachment."

Haughton has returned to prison – again.

Had several immigration lawyers arrested Haughton elsewhere, the federal authorities probably would not have issued a prisoner for him. But because Haughton was arrested at a port of entry at an airport, the charges probably triggered an "inadmissibility proceeding", which only requires law enforcement officials to "have reasons to believe "that drug trafficking has triggered a possible deportation procedure. immigration lawyers.

The norm, however, is "fuzzy," said Adina Appelbaum, program director of the Impact Immigration Laboratory of the Coalition for Immigrant Rights in the Capital Region (CAIR).

As a basis for dismissing someone from the country, it is "of concern" because of the "breadth of its interpretation and application," Appelbaum said. "More broadly, this case shows the disproportionate consequences that criminal offenses and allegations may have in the field of immigration, including for people who have legal status for a green card."

Emma Winger, a lawyer at the American Immigration Council, said the Haughton case was unusual in the sense that he had been held for honey, but unsurprisingly in other respects.

"It is not unusual that people detained by ICE in criminal jails are kept in criminal detention and that charges are then returned," said Winger.

Winger, like Morris, said the Haughton detainee should probably have been abandoned after the drug trafficking charges disappeared.

"Once it's about possession and not drug trafficking, it seems like a good reason to drop the inmate," Winger said. But, she added, "it's a bit more fuzzy, because in theory, every immigrant must file a complaint for inadmissibility, it's that she had probable reasons" of to believe that Haughton was a drug dealer who should be banned from entering.

Morris said he had tried to join immigration and customs control services several times to obtain the lifting of the detention order but could not establish contact. Appelbaum said that Winger would not be surprised. It is usually difficult to contact a person at ICE so that he can raise prisoners for what may be considered low-priority cases, and when closing the system, Mr Appelbaum said: "There are had a lot of chaos and no response. "

Asked about the case, customs officers led the Washington Post to the Maryland Transportation Authority police, who then led a reporter to prosecutors at Anne Arundel's county attorney's office. Prosecutors answered some questions about their case but directed The Post to the Department of Homeland Security on matters concerning the Haughton detainee.

ICE sent the Post back to Customs, where Steve Sapp, a spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection, said the privacy laws forbade the agency "to discuss details of the pbadenger arrivals inspection. "

Haughton remembers the emotions, stress and pain in his children's voices when they were talking on the phone while incarcerated.

"It broke me," said Haughton. Each time they asked, "When do you come home?" "

In an interview, Anne Artel's County State Attorney, Anne Colt Leitess, explained in an interview that the Maryland State Police Criminal Police Laboratory does not have the right to do so. was not equipped to badyze honey or liquids; his results would not have erased Haughton.

Because the first test turned out to be negative, she said, the state dropped the three drug – related charges but maintained the charge of indictment. K-9 drug-based crime and positive field test while law enforcement forces sent the bottle to a Homeland Security lab in Georgia for further testing.

"The inmate of ICE is really what holds him back," said Leitess. "He was not restrained on anything with us."

For weeks, Morris sent an e-mail to prosecutors asking for the status of the lab test in Georgia. Then, at a hearing on March 21, a month and a half after Haughton's third bail and nearly three months after his first arrest, prosecutors dropped the latest charge.

Haughton could go home.

Leitess said his office had no control over how quickly the results of the second test had arrived, but that he had dropped the latest charge against Haughton immediately after learning them.

Haughton said that he was trying to put his life back in order. He has a job as a bread driver after losing his previous jobs in prison. And her children are trying to improve their grades after the trauma of her disappearance has affected their schoolwork.

Haughton says that he is constantly trying to rebadure his children – one of them burst into tears when Haughton came home because she did not recognize his father – that it will not disappear again.

But some scars, Haughton says, will not go away.

"I'm even scared of traveling now," Haughton said. "You are innocent and you can end up in jail."

(With the exception of the title, this story was not changed by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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