Abandon all hope – with this agency

‘GRABBING PEOPLE OFF THE STREET’

APPEALING TO the Trump administration on deportation is like “screaming into the wind,” an immigration lawyer said Thursday.

While the number of deportations skyrocketed under former President Barack Obama, at least his people listened to reason, said Angela Fernandez, executive director of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

Obama’s deportation policy focused on criminals, while President Trump’s approach punishes families for minor offenses, some of which were committed decades ago.

“It gives ICE enforcement a tremendous amount of latitude,” Fernandez said.

“As a result, we are seeing ICE agents under Trump who have been unleashed. They can set up a customs and border patrol anywhere.”

Fernandez said she was particularly alarmed by the arrest of Pablo Villavicencio, an undocumented immigrant, who was detained last week while delivering a pizza to a Brooklyn Army base.

While he was there, an active ICE warrant was discovered in the National Crime Information Center database, and Villavicencio, a native of Ecuador, was detained and taken to a detention facility in New Jersey.

Villavicencio had a New York City identification, but not a driver’s license, which was requested at the base.

“What’s really frightening is that he went to a military base,” Fernandez said.

“He showed his New York City ID, which should be sufficient. There was no reason to ask for his driver’s license. This guy was fishing,” she added.

“It wasn’t like he was stopped in the middle of committing a crime,” Fernandez said. “Why did he punch his name into a database if he wasn’t in the middle of committing a crime? Should driving without a license condemn someone to deportation?”

The real crime, Fernandez said, is that immigrants facing deportation are locked up without access to free lawyers because their legal battles are civil matters.

Gov. Cuomo has offered to pay for Villavicencio’s legal fees through the Legal Defense Project.