Close to Home: Deport the criminals? Who are they?

A week ago, The Press Democrat wrote in an editorial, “As we've noted before, illegal immigrants who are convicted of serious or violent crimes should be deported after completing their sentences, and if SB 54 prevents that from occurring, then the wording needs to be altered. Protecting families and peaceful workers is something worth fighting for. Protecting criminals is not.”

This country's founders might disagree with that last sentence. We have some very worthy, constitutional protections for persons accused of crime and even for those convicted: guarantees of the right to representation by counsel and against cruel and unusual punishment, for example.

There is no right to be represented by an attorney in deportation proceedings, really. It's only a right if you can afford one, but without help from the public defender system so often the poorest go unrepresented. Even U.S. citizens have been deported because of the minimalist approach to due process in this system.

Many times, the “deport criminals but protect families” line leaves “criminals” undefined. The PD Editorial Board did not fall into that trap, pointing out that President Donald Trump uses the word too liberally to include 3 million immigrants, and the board makes it somewhat more precise referring to those guilty of serious or violent crimes. But the line deserves more scrutiny.

What about the father of three and soccer coach of 15 years with no recent criminal violations but who committed a serious crime 20 years ago? Should he be turned over to this deportation machine with its minimalist protections against error?

What about the 25-year-old mother of one who came to the United States when she was 2 years old, knows no other country and commits domestic battery with minor injury, a violent crime? Does it serve her one child to turn her over?

And what if the deportation is to Honduras or El Salvador? Have you seen the intentional homicide rates in those countries today? It is 84.6 and 64.2 per 100,000 population, respectively, according to the United Nations, compared with 3.9 in the United States and 1.5 in Canada. Would it be cruel and unusual to deport this father or that mother to Central America under these circumstances?

These gray areas should cause us to take a closer look at what we accomplish by deportation. Please remember that the man who killed Kate Steinle in San Francisco had been deported several times. Deportation did not protect her. It is the most physically fit who stand the best chance of getting across the border; maybe the most daring, maybe even the most ruthless. Deportation is most effective against the weakest, the least likely to injure us.

Any rule that is set up will require human judgment in its application. We speak of erring on this side or that. SB 54, if amended, would draw some line to be interpreted by sheriffs' staff around the state, so they are likely to err on the side of greater collaboration with a sister law enforcement agency like ICE. Shall we draw the line to err on the side of deporting the father and mother described above in order to be more sure to deport (again) the man who shot Kate Steinle in San Francisco? Or should we draw the line to protect that father and mother, at the risk of missing the man who shot Steinle?

After working with the immigrant community and in the deportation courts for years, I've come to doubt that deportation is really about crime, unlawful status, worthiness to live in the United States. Deportation is a sword that hangs over the head of a class of people - a working class of people, a second class by law, condemned to a Jim Crow existence by a political system that belies the economic system that provides for us. Deportation is not protective. It is a system of threat that we can do without.

Richard Coshnear is an immigration attorney who has been based in Santa Rosa for 13 years.