Florida residents are deported after 11 years of life in the United States

Фото: Depositphotos

Miami (Florida) resident Leonardo Morales was going to take his children to school when a car with federal agents pulled up to their yard and arrested him for violating immigration laws.

It happened in September, and since then it has been at the center for illegal immigrants, reports Miami Herald.

11 years ago, Morales, his wife and two children fled from the war and banditry in Colombia, where they lived in the city of Palmyra, considered the most violent and dangerous region in the country.

They arrived in the United States on tourist visas, applied for asylum and settled in the small town of Kendall, Florida. Morales, who works in the construction industry, has no criminal charges in the state, officials said. His two children - 16-year-old Valeria and 14-year-old Juan - came to the United States as very young children and now speak fluent English, but their Spanish is not very good.

Family of Leonardo Morales.
Screenshot from video

They cannot imagine life without a father, just as they cannot imagine what they will do if they return to Colombia.

His wife Mejías says that their troubles are connected with a man who called himself an immigration prosecutor, but didn’t fill out their asylum documents, and they were refused.

At the same time, the former immigration officer Fredy Berragan, who helped the family with filling out the documents, claims that he made it clear that he was not a lawyer. He does not remember the particular case of this family, but stresses that he would never lie about the fact that he is a lawyer, as it threatens with legal troubles, which, by the way, he already had in the 2002 year, when he was convicted of 10 months for soliciting bribes from immigrants wanting to enter the United States.

He believes that the family is simply looking for someone to blame, because they do not deport anyone because of an error in the documents, but give a chance to correct it.

According to statistics, people from Latin America rarely receive political asylum in the United States compared to people from other countries. For example, in 2014, they accounted for only 4% of the 24 thousands of people who received asylum. More than half of successful asylum cases in the United States occur in immigrants from China, African countries and the Middle East.

Morales' application for asylum was filed in the 2010 year, he was refused, having been awarded a deportation, and the appeal did not help either.

People who have not committed a crime are often deported from the United States. In 2016, there were 96 thousand of them - an average of 260 people per day.

Living in the United States in violation of immigration law is not a criminal offense, according to the federal law of the United States, unless an immigrant has been deported before.

After the arrest of his father, the Morales family lives in constant fear that they, too, will soon be deported. The children applied for legalization under a special program adopted in the 2012 year, which allows people brought to the USA before the age of 16 to get an education in the USA and remain legally working in the country. Valeria’s application has already been approved, Juan is still waiting for a decision.

Now the family is taking part in protests in Miami against deportation, in which several dozen people are participating.

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