Ex-U.S. Navy serviceman to face possible deportation on January 10

By Natasha Waldron Anthony

A 36-year-old Guyanese, who resides in the United States and has served in the U.S. Navy as a Petty Officer, First Class, awaits his fate to either be deported or remain in the U.S. on January 10, 2011 

The Yonkers, New York resident, who has been living in the U.S. since 1988, was detained at the JFK International Airport on November 25, 2010 after returning from vacation in Jamaica. 

The man’s attorney, Angelo MacDonald, of MacDonald Law firm in Manhattan, told Guyana Times International that his client was convicted of manslaughter in the second degree in 2002, following an accident involving the car he was driving while intoxicated, which resulted in the death of one of his close friends.

MacDonald said the conviction in New York is equivalent to involuntary manslaughter, not a voluntary act.

He told this publication that when his client arrived from Jamaica at the JFK Airport in New York on Thanksgiving Night, it prompted the U.S. Customs and Immigration officers to pay closer attention to him, since he was travelling alone, as his wife had returned to the U.S.A. the day before. 

When the officers saw the 2002 conviction record, they detained the man to then initiate deportation proceedings against him. 

McDonald said, “You’re a Green Card holder, spent almost your whole life here. You’ve served your country, you’ve worked, paid your taxes, but you’re not a citizen; and because you’ve had a criminal conviction, depending on the conviction, you can be taken into custody, held without bail, held for  a long period of time, denied from seeing a judge, not entitled to a lawyer at the government’s expense, and you can be sent anywhere in the country, you have no control over it. All of that is legal, and it’s the way, and you can’t stop that.” 

His client was taken to the Hudson County Jail in New Jersey that same night, where he awaited documentation explaining why he was being deported to Guyana. However, since that piece of paper was not presented to the Immigration Court in Manhattan, the judge threw out the case. 

That was earlier this month, on December 14, after MacDonald submitted a motion for bond or bail on December 3, challenging that the 2002 conviction was involuntary and was not considered serious enough for removal. 

And his client was released from the New Jersey jail a week later and has to return to the JFK Airport in New York on January 10. 

However, since nothing has happened, the attorney says going to federal court to stop them is not an option now, “they could end up just giving him back his Green Card and he goes along with his life, or they can take him into custody again. We just don’t know right now.” 

MacDonald is advising all Green card holders that, once it is possible to become a U.S. citizen, do it, as it offers you all the rights and protection as any person who is actually born here in the USA. 

His client is married to a U.S. citizen and works in the construction industry.