Since 2012, agents of immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) mistakenly arrested 1480 US citizens.
On Friday (April 27), the newspaper Los Angeles Times published the results of an investigation which showed that over the past 6 years, the Agency has released more than 1480 people from custody after it was proven that they were American citizens.
How found the journalists, the staff of ICE repeatedly intended mistakenly deport U.S. citizens after the illegal detention, the reason for which could be incomplete immigration documents or not thoroughly investigated. And in some cases people even had the years to prove that they are Americans.
Often in so-called risk group includes two types of people: children of immigrants and nationals born outside the country. Just one of them was a native of Jamaica Davino Watson. The ICE agent has found the man when he was serving a sentence for selling cocaine in prison in new York. When asked about his immigration status , Watson said that he became a U.S. citizen, thanks to his father, who went through the procedure of naturalization. But in the database the employee ICE found not Hopeton Ulanda Watson (father Devine), and Hopeton Livingston Watson, who lived in Connecticut and was not American.
Thus, after serving his sentence for the drugs case, Watson spent three and a half years in prison, arguing in court that the ICE agent made a mistake.
The chief judge of the Appeal court of second instance Robert Katzman said that 1 273-day imprisonment Watson was «a vivid illustration of the consequences that flow from the opportunities of the government to initiate the procedure for the detention and expulsion» and «sometimes limited capacity» of citizens to resist.
So long illegal detention of Watson in prison has affected his mental health. According to the forensic expert, the man was diagnosed with depression and neurosis.
