Mexican prisoner awaits deportation to nation he barely recalls
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Version 0 of 1. If Rodolfo Padilla had been born in the United States, he would be a free man today, celebrating his early release from federal prison on drug-selling charges, looking forward to meeting his new grandson in Texas and planning to reopen his car repair shop after seven years behind bars. Instead, the 47-year-old mechanic is confined in a detention center in rural Virginia, awaiting all-but-certain deportation to Mexico, the country he left at age 10. Padilla, a legal permanent resident whose extended family lives in the United States, says he has no ties left to Mexico and fears the violent gangs that have taken over his hometown region. “I know I messed up. I know I have to face facts,” Padilla said in a telephone interview from the detention center in Farmville. “But I served my time, and I changed my life. If they send me to Mexico, what am I going to do? Where am I going to go? I could try to open a garage, but the gangs would put pressure on me. My family is all here. I would be lost.” Padilla’s deportation might not seem undeserved, given his criminal record, and it would be well within the policies of the Immigration Customs and Enforcement agency, which routinely seeks to deport non-citizens convicted of serious crimes after they complete their prison terms. Often, it is mostly a matter of paperwork. But forcing him to return to Mexico would seem to contradict the policies that led to his release with a reduced sentence in October. Padilla was among about 6,000 federal inmates, including 1,700 non-citizens, freed recently as part of an effort to compensate for harsh anti-drug laws that locked away many nonviolent offenders for years. [For non-U.S. citizens, early release from prison means swift deportation] Every prisoner approved for release was screened and considered to be no danger to society. But while the U.S. citizens among them are being sent to halfway houses or set up for home monitoring, the non-citizens have been reconfined under ICE custody to await probable deportation. Many are longtime legal residents like Padilla, and immigration advocates say it is unfair to make them suffer a second punishment. Although they are entitled to a final hearing and may have grounds for deportation relief, advocates said most have little access to legal advice and may know nothing about their rights to appeal, especially amid the tangle of changing laws on criminal sentencing. “We find this disparate treatment deeply troubling,” said Paromita Shah, associate director of the National Immigration Project in the District. “These people are being transferred to remote facilities, with no understanding of what’s happening to them. The laws have changed a lot since they were sentenced, and they may have strong equities in this country,” she added. “They should have the opportunity to make a case for staying, not be deported in a hurry.” Even though legal-aid groups are eager to help, lawyers said they have few ways of tracking down individuals who have spent years in prison and suddenly find themselves shipped to faraway jails, under a different system, and in legal limbo. “We don’t know where to find them, and they don’t know how to find us,” said one lawyer who asked not to be identified for fear of jeopardizing her clients’ cases. ICE officials said that many illegal immigrants in this group, especially Mexicans, have already been deported but that the exact number was not available. They said others with legal status are awaiting final court hearings, mainly through teleconferencing. In certain cases, ICE officials have the power to grant deportation relief, but those convicted of serious drug offenses or other “aggravated felonies” are unlikely to win clemency. “These are all routine transfers from the Bureau of Prisons. There is absolutely no difference between those who are part of the sentence reduction and others in the criminal-alien program,” said one ICE official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Conservative analysts contend that whether an immigrant is illegal or legal, it is appropriate and prudent to deport those who commit serious crimes. Rather than seeing ICE as overzealous, these critics charge that President Obama’s administration has made too little effort to fight deportation challenges in court. “We are stuck with American-citizen criminals, and we have enough of them,” said Jessica Vaughan, an analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies in the District. “I don’t see any reason why we should look the other way when a non-citizen commits a serious crime. We do not owe them the same level of due process. For the sake of public safety, the right thing to do is return them to their homelands.” ‘I deserve a second chance’ Rodolfo Padilla has lived a rocky life as a poorly educated Mexican immigrant, and he is the first to admit that he has made terrible choices. He dropped out of high school, drifted between Texas and California, married and separated, struggled to make a living as a mechanic, got arrested for drug possession and made friends with bad people. His fatal mistake, he said, came in 2008 when he let an acquaintance rent his workshop, and the man used it to deal drugs. Padilla insists that he didn’t know, but both men were convicted of conspiracy to sell more than five kilograms of cocaine, an aggravated felony. He said his attorney persuaded him to plead guilty in hopes of winning a short sentence, but the judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison. “When that happened, I lost everything: my family, my shop, even my tools,” he said. But prison life, though harsh, also offered stability. He earned his high school equivalency diploma. He learned to play guitar, exercised and read. “I served my time, and I changed,” he said. “I think I deserve a second chance.” Despite his poor judgment and long incarceration, Padilla enjoys the fierce devotion of his large and scattered family. In interviews, several relatives described him as someone who is generous to a fault, helping them in emergencies and sending birthday messages on scraps of paper from prison. “He has always been like a Dad to me; he tried to be the moral boost every child needs,” said his niece, Dominique Avalos-Padilla, of St. Paul, Minn., bursting into tears as she spoke. “I hope they will consider his family. We love him very much, and we don’t want him to go back to Mexico. We already lost three members of our family to violence there. We don’t want to lose him, too.” His ex-wife, Erika Padilla, in South Texas, was surprised by a reporter’s phone call but was not hesitant in her response. “He is not a bad man,” she said firmly. “He worked hard and he would take the shirt off his back to help others. It’s not fair what has happened, and there is nothing for him in Mexico,” she added. “Here he has a brand-new grandbaby, and I hope they get to meet.” Today, Padilla spends his days in a large barracks full of bunk beds, watching news and sports in Spanish. Most of his fellow detainees are from Mexico and Central America. Some are older former prisoners like himself; others are young men arrested for drunken driving or other offenses. There is constant coming and going, with people getting deported or freed on bond. And there is a constant murmur of worry and rumor. “We all get along, because we are all in the same boat,” he said. “I tell the young ones to stay out of trouble so they don’t end up like me.” Padilla is scheduled for a hearing soon, and a legal-aid group in the District has been sending someone to counsel him at no cost. But he knows that with the drug-conspiracy conviction, his chances of avoiding deportation are slim, and he is starting to prepare himself for the worst. “I keep thinking about what it would be like in Mexico,” he said. “Where I come from, the gangs are very strong there now. They are finding dead bodies in the street.” Padilla sighed and tried to sound hopeful. “Maybe I could go someplace where there are tourists and work on cars. I know they make Volkswagens there, and I have a lot of experience. I hear the Yucatan is nice.” |