Jorge Garcia Deported

Jan 22, 2018

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ordered Jorge Garcia, a landscaper from Lincoln Park, Michigan, to leave the country. Garcia came to the U.S. with his parents almost 30 years ago when he was just ten years old. He was forced to leave his wife, an auto worker who retired from the Ford Rouge plant, and two children behind.

Garcia jumped through all the hoops the government demands in an attempt to stay in this country. He began submitting the necessary legal paperwork 13 years ago and checked in with ICE regularly since then. He had no criminal record and paid taxes all his life, yet despite the fact that he came to the U.S. as a child, the government was able to deport him on a technicality. It seems the politicians who passed DACA somehow neglected to consider those who came here as children 30 years ago!

Garcia’s deportation has rightfully inspired outrage from all quarters, including many workers.

The politicians–from Trump to Obama to Bush–pretending to be looking out for the safety of the population, rationalize their attacks on undocumented immigrants by claiming that they are “only” deporting hardened criminals.

Garcia’s case certainly puts the lie to that notion.

But we can be sure that among the more than 4.5 million who have been deported over the past 17 years under the last three presidents, there were many people who, like Garcia, contributed their labor to make this society run and paid taxes like the rest of us. Including taxes that they’ll never receive the benefits from.

How many workers or our families, coming from the less privileged layers of society as we do, haven’t had some kind of brush with the law? They could just as easily brand many of us as “criminals” as a pretext to attack us as well.

The real criminals are the officials who rip all the millions of Jorge Garcias away from their communities and families–over a piece of paper.