In these days, where the much-awaited Comprehensive Immigration Reform died and that local police is beginning to work jointly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to enforce US Immigration laws, there is an incredible increase in detention of immigrants and deportations. A lot of the people being detained and deported are aliens who either entered without inspection; illegally through the border or entered with a valid visa and overstayed the authorized period. A large amount of these aliens had previous orders of deportations rendered in the previous years and either did not show up to court for their final hearing or requested voluntary departure and failed to leave this country. Those individuals are now living in the shadows illegally in this country with the constant fear of being caught by ICE and now by the local police.
Now that local police officers are beginning to work jointly with ICE to enforce Immigration laws through the ICE ACCESS program, a simple traffic stop may result in deportation. The police officer makes a call to Customs and Border Patrol, they review your record, establish you are in the U.S illegally, and you are arrested and sent to a detention center for either a removal hearing or expedited removal, if you have previously been ordered deported.
There is only one defense in these types of cases. Many people who have been ordered deported in the past may be eligible to reopen their removal case and even obtain their legal permanent residency (Green Card) through a Motion to Reopen. A Motion to Reopen may be filed by individuals currently held in an Immigration Detention Center or not. The individual may also be living in a different State than that in which they were ordered deported. However, the individual must satisfy specific requirements to be eligible for a Motion to Reopen the deportation case.
There are several cases wherein a Motion to Reopen applies and is a possible defense for an alien who entered the US illegally or entered with a visa and overstayed and was ordered deported. One common ground for a Motion to Reopen is lack of notice. If the alien can prove that he did not change his mailing address and never received notice of the hearing or deportation order or did in fact change his address and never received notice in the new address, a Motion to Reopen is a valid defense against a deportation order. Another available defense is inefficiency of counsel. This ground requires extreme inefficiency from counsel, negligence, and clear evidence of it.
Additionally, another basis for a Motion to Reopen is equities here in the United States. For example, an individual who has been ordered deported may file a Motion to Reopen the removal case based on new facts. The new facts may include changed circumstances in his home country which would make him fearful of persecution, sickness, etc, thereby granting him the opportunity to seek asylum or protected status in the United States. Other new facts may be marriage to a U.S. citizen and establishing that the U.S. Citizens’ family’s return to the alien’s native country would cause extraordinary harm to them. These cases include families who have U.S. citizen family members fighting in Iraq, US Citizen family members who have a disease that is not treatable in the alien’s native country, etc.
About the Author:
Attorney Sonia M. Muñoz is the President of Immigration Legal Counsel, LLC. (ILC); a law firm located in South Florida. Attorney Muñoz conducts regular presentations regarding the comprehensive reform and appears as an Immigration expert on Spanish television news. ILC represents clients located in all 50 States of the US and countries around the world. You may obtain more information about the current Comprehensive Immigration Reform and to subscribe to receive the free newsletter “Immigration Alert” visit ILC’s webpage at: www.ilclawfirm.com or call 1-866-482-VISA to schedule a consultation.
