Immigrant caught with $10 worth of pot served 8 days at Rikers in 2003 but since has been held by feds and now faces deportation
- Originally published in Newsday (New York) on March 13, 2005
Copyright 2005 Newsday, Inc.
BY ROBERT POLNER. STAFF WRITER
In the end, Linden Corrica lost his freedom and his life in New York over $10 worth of marijuana.
Before
his arrest, he had a good life, an apartment in Bushwick that he shared
with his wife, Carol McDonald, and their daughter, Natasha, 7.
Together, the couple had risen from poverty in their native Guyana to
come to New York a decade ago.
But 18
months ago, Corrica, a Rastafarian, was picked up with two nickel bags
of pot in his pocket. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of
marijuana sale, in return for a sentence of 20 days in jail.
He
spent eight days there in September 2003, his wife said. "Eight days
and he's back with us - it seemed a fair price to pay," said McDonald,
44, a U.S. citizen.
But Corrica has been
barred from returning to his home and his family - a penalty much worse
than he or his wife ever imagined possible.
Upon
completing his sentence on Rikers Island, Corrica was sent to an
immigration detention facility in northern New Jersey, then to a
federal facility in Oakdale, La. He has remained a detainee tagged for
mandatory deportation ever since.
On Wednesday, his wife learned his appeal was denied by the Board of Immigration Appeals in Falls Church, Va.
He had past guilty pleas
Corrica,
43, had submitted a psychiatrist's evaluation of his daughter detailing
her emotional problems since his detention, an explanation of his
wife's struggles to make ends meet, and a religious rather than a
recreational basis for his marijuana use.
In
the Rastafari spiritual movement throughout the Caribbean and other
parts of the world, some members use marijuana for sacramental
purposes, similar to using wine in Communion, noted a letter in his
file from Horace Campbell, a professor of African-American studies and political science at Syracuse University.
But
the Board of Immigration Appeals was aware that Corrica had pleaded
guilty several times previously to marijuana-related charges, dating
back to 1998. Until his latest brush with the law, he was not sentenced
to Rikers Island, where immigration officers have an office.
It
appears that Corrica's only hope now for release, a slim one, is his
appeal on constitutional grounds to a New York federal court.
Yet
legal experts say the federal immigration service's 18-month detention
of Corrica, a legal resident who had a green card, underscores a
growing trend.
Since 1996, they say,
federal immigration law has regarded low-level crimes - sometimes even
turnstile-jumping - committed by immigrants as grounds to deport. And
since Sept. 11, 2001, federal authorities have made it their mission to
identify offenders in jails and remove them to places like Oakdale,
where they are typically held for long stretches and then deported.
This strategy is one of the factors fueling the elevated level of
deportations nationwide, the experts said.
Lawyer: Immigrants targeted
"What
I see a lot from my New York City cases is that law enforcement in New
York focuses more now, it seems to me, on the immigrant community and
their workplaces, like the construction sites," said Tracy Davenport,
Corrica's attorney, who represents some of the hundreds of New York
detainees sent to Oakdale, La.
The former court-appointed attorney who represented Corrica in the marijuana case could not be reached.
"A
lot of my guys have convictions for criminal sale of marijuana: You
have an undercover cop hanging out at a construction work site, and
they'll ask the guy, 'Can I buy a joint for $5?' The guy needs money,
so he says, 'Give me $5 and I'll get you what you want.' That's
criminal sale of marijuana under New York criminal law, and that's drug
trafficking and a felony under immigration law. Forget it, they're
gone," Davenport said.
Often an
immigrant's only chance is to plead not guilty and go to trial. But in
New York, unlike many other states, defendants do not know that. So
they may plead to a reduced charge, often on the advice of their
attorney, and then get much more than they bargained for.
"I'm
not condoning crime, but to deport someone for a misdemeanor offense to
which he or she has pleaded guilty on the advice of counsel just
strikes me as hypocrisy," said Bryan Lonegan, a criminal defense lawyer
with the Legal Aid Society's Immigration Law Unit.
'No incentive ... to be clear'
According
to Marianne Yang, director of the Immigrant Defense Project of the New
York Defenders Association, New York is not among the nearly two dozen
states that have passed laws since 1996 allowing immigrant defendants
to take back their felony or misdemeanor pleas when a judge didn't
advise them on how it would affect their immigrant status.
"There's
no incentive for the courts to be clear," Yang said. "As a result, many
people in New York have no idea and are completely surprised that even
though they only received, say, a sentence of community service, they
ended up in detention facing mandatory deportation."
On
top of that, many court-appointed lawyers are unfamiliar with the ins
and outs of immigration law, said Kerry Bretz, a Manhattan former trial
attorney for the federal immigration service who now represents
criminal defendants.
With few options in a
legal system that often leaves them confused and without full
information, Davenport summed it up by saying simply: "Immigrants in
New York should not plead guilty to anything."
Sent packing
Total involuntary deportations from the United States:
'76 - 29,226
'86 - 24,592
'96* - 69,680
'97 - 115,632
'98 - 173,146
'99 - 180,902
'00 - 185,789
'01 - 177,739
'02 - 150,084
'03 - 186,151
*Congress tightened immigration restrictions.
Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement