We want you to know that we stand beside you. If the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains you, we will defend you.
Unfortunately, like tens of thousands of immigrants in this country, your admission to minor drug offenses could be a deportable offense that separates you indefinitely from your wife and two children. But we want you to know that we will fight for you.
Even though President Joe Biden pardoned U.S. citizens last year for certain possession offenses, he did not pardon you as a non-citizen.
Most drug offenses mean mandatory detention for non-citizens in this country, with no opportunity to leave a prison-like environment. If you are detained and asked to be transferred to a detention center closer to your wife and children, you will likely not prevail.
You could be forced to decide between permanently living with your family in the United Kingdom or from the confines of a detention center pending deportation.
Most immigrants in your situation would likely be locked into detention. In fact, in the U.S. capital region, thousands of mixed-status families like yours face separation every year. Our data at Capital Area Immigrants Rights Coalition shows that just around Washington DC, an average of one thousand fathers a year are separated from their children because of ICE detention. Unfortunately, these detention numbers continue to rise.
Sharing difficult moments in your memoir could result in your deportation, but Harry, this is not unusual.
The government puts countless resources into surveilling immigrant communities. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE probe immigrant social media accounts.
Photos and posts are wielded against them to deny bond, accuse them of drug use and other crimes, and allege they are in criminal organizations and gangs.
In contrast to your experience, what can become damning in their cases can be as simple as the color of the clothes they wore in a photograph or revealing a new tattoo. Yes, that is often enough to keep immigrants behind bars.
Most non-citizens in the United States aren't entitled to court-appointed legal counsel, and 70% of those with deportation cases have to face prosecution alone.
Without the right to an attorney, people are forced to fight their own cases in a language often not their own, gather their own evidence, examine witnesses, and defend themselves against highly trained government lawyers and judges.
