Jackson Lee demands Trump reopen local deportation case
Lawmaker says situation sends terrifying message
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat, called on President Donald Trump’s administration Friday to reopen the immigration case of a Pearland father who was deported this week despite having no criminal record and a temporary protection from removal.
She said the deportation of Jose Escobar, whom immigration agents granted a provisional work permit in 2012, sent a terrifying message to immigrants across the country that the Trump administration would deport anyone here illegally and even some like Escobar who have a type of interim legal status.
“There has been an injustice that will be faced by many in this country,” she said at a press conference in the downtown Houston federal building, flanked by community activists and Escobar’s wife Rose, who is an American citizen. “I ask the president and the administration to immediately reassess what is becoming mass
deportation and I have written to (Homeland Security) Secretary (John) Kelly to ask him to reopen this case, which will be necessary for Jose Escobar to come back into this country.”
Experts in immigration law say that it would be extremely difficult to bring Escobar back if the administration does not reopen the case. With such action, Escobar could be separated from his American wife and two small children for years.
Jackson Lee said she received a verbal assurance on Wednesday from the director of the Laredo office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where Escobar was being detained, that they would not immediately deport him but hold him while she pursued her congressional options.
She had already sent an official letter of inquiry last week seeking information about his detention. Escobar’s lawyer, Raed Gonzalez, on Wednesday requested a stay of deportation while legal papers were filed to reopen the case. The government never responded.
Instead immigration agents flew Escobar to El Salvador, a country he hasn’t seen in 16 years, on Thursday mornng.
“I had the right to rely on that (assurance,)” Jackson Lee said.
A Houston spokesman for the agency, Greg Palmore, said he was not aware of any such agreement.
Jackson Lee said she sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly Friday asking for “emergency intervention” to reopen the case.
Too late to reapply
She noted that immigration agents themselves released Escobar in 2012 on a so-called order of supervision, allowing him to work as long as he checked in with them annually, which he did.
In fact, federal agents handcuffed him in front of his wife and 2-year-old toddler, Carmen, at his annual check-in meeting on Feb. 22, telling them that Trump’s new guidelines now made him a priority for deportation.
“He was providing for his family ... he was always in a place where he could be found,” Jackson Lee said. “That sounds like a raging criminal that I need to really move out of the country.”
Unlike the gang members and drug dealers whom Trump said this week he is deporting, Escobar landed in removal proceedings years ago due to an innocent paperwork gaffe.
His mother sent for him when he was about 15, and like her, he qualified for temporary protected status for people fleeing widespread disasters in certain countries. She assumed that because he was a minor his permit would automatically renew when she reapplied for hers. But it didn’t.
They moved and didn’t receive the paperwork informing him that he had missed the deadline for renewal.
When he finally figured out what had happened, he tried to reapply for the permit, but it was too late. Because he had suddenly lost protected status, the government initiated deportation proceedings.
His lawyer told him not to show up at the court hearing or he would be deported. In his absence, the judge ordered him removed in 2006.
He wasn’t arrested until 2011 and was released in 2012 after a media and congressional campaign organized by his wife.
His temporary stay was part of a wave of reprieves announced that year by the administration of former President Barack Obama, who said he wanted to focus the government’s limited resources on deporting violent criminals, rather than people with clean records like Escobar who have been here for years and have American children.
Jackson Lee said that Escobar is still eligible for the initial temporary protected status that he once had, since the provision for El Salvador doesn’t expire until 2018. He could make a legal argument that he wasn’t able to file the initial renewal paperwork himself since he was a minor at the time.
She said he is also eligible for temporary protection under a program for immigrants who were brought here illegally as children, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
Jackson Lee said she is filing a private bill in Congress that could grant Escobar a temporary legal status if it passes through committee. It would grant him permanent permission to stay if the Republican Congress approves it.
‘Facing a steep uphill climb’
Gonzalez, Escobar’s attorney, said he is filing a motion to reopen the case with immigration agents and the court. He argued that Escobar received poor legal counsel, including being wrongly advised not to show up to his removal hearing, and should not have been deported. His previous lawyers also never told the immigration judges that he once held the temporary protected status for Salvadorans, which could have granted him some sort of claim to stay.
But convincing the government or an immigration judge to reopen the case would be difficult as Escobar has already been deported and the federal government typically only agrees to return such people in rare situations.
Gonzalez said he would also file an appeal to grant Escobar humanitarian parole, which again is granted in only exceptional cases.
“They’re facing a steep uphill climb,” said John Sandweg, an acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Obama administration.
He said he is concerned that Trump’s broadened new deportation focus would exhaust the government’s limited resources on people like Escobar, rather than dangerous criminals, and push such immigrants and their families further underground.
“There are literally millions of people in the country who are in very similar situations as this gentleman and pose no threat,” he said.
It it possible that Escobar could be stuck in El Salvador for anywhere between two years and a decade.
Even though he is married to an American and can apply for a green card through his wife’s citizenship, the fact that he lived here illegally and was ordered deported automatically bans him from re-entering the country for as long as 10 years.
He could seek a waiver from these bans, but the entire process could take at least two years under the best circumstances, said Charles Foster, a Houston attorney who advised President George W. Bush on immigration.
A group of interfaith leaders gathered at the downtown Catholic Chancery Friday pleaded for Congress to stop separating families like the Escobars and push for a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally.
“It is impacting the lives of real people in our congregations,” said Lutheran Bishop Michael Rinehart. “We have seen the turmoil in our own communities that has already been created.”
Escobar’s wife, Rose, tearfully promised to keep on fighting, for her husband, her children, and other families in the same position.
“This is the only man in my life and you are ripping him apart from me,” she said. “I’m a U.S. citizen and I’m being hurt by my president.”