DREAM Act Portal Forum - 10-year-old Willmar boy faces deportation

10-year-old Willmar boy faces deportation following immigration raids last December
AP Associated Press
Published Friday, October 05, 2007

BLOOMINGTON — Sammy Diaz-Maldonado was at a friend’s home before school when armed immigration agents burst in.

The agents questioned the frightened 9-year-old boy alone for about a half hour, without either of his parents present, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement used the information he gave to start proceedings against him, his lawyers said.

“Horrible, just horrible,” is how Sammy, now 10, said he remembers the day he was caught up in an immigration sweep that led to 49 arrests in the Willmar area last April.

Sammy Diaz-Maldonado, 10, right, is hugged Thursday by his mother, Jenny Maldonado, after a hearing in Bloomington regarding his immigration status. Diaz-Maldonado was det-ained and interrogated during 2006 Immigration Customs Enforcement raids in Willmar. (AP Photo/Star Tribune, Elizabeth Flores)

Sammy made his first court appearance Thursday as his attorneys filed a motion seeking to terminate the deportation proceedings, saying his constitutional and due process rights were violated. His next hearing will be in three weeks.

Afterward, his attorneys said the government had terrorized the boy, leaving him badly shaken.

“Sammy was torn away from his mother’s waist-side by two armed agents,” Gloria Contreras-Edin, one of his attorneys, told reporters. “ ... He was crying, and he was shaking, and he was scared, and was screaming, ‘Don’t take my mommy away.”‘

He was so traumatized that he vomited twice afterward, and he’s still afraid of all officials, Contreras-Edin said.

Greg Palmore, an ICE spokesman, declined to comment on the case, but acknowledged it is unusual for such a young child to have an immigration hearing all his own.

ICE has defended how it carried out the sweep, saying all of its agents’ actions were fully within the law. Of the 49 people arrested at the time, 18 had criminal convictions, six had deportation orders and 25 had no criminal history but were living here illegally, according to the ICE.

Contreras-Edin, executive director of Centro Legal, a legal services group serving the Latino community, and her colleague, Rachel Bengtson, argued that statements given by a scared child without a parent present are inherently suspect and should not be admitted as evidence. Their motion seeks, among other things, to suppress Sammy’s statement.

The attorneys declined to discuss Sammy’s parents’ immigration status, or give Sammy’s country of origin. And while they said they deny all the government’s allegations, they also declined to say whether they contend he’s here legally.

Sammy is still living with his parents in Willmar. Speaking in English, he said he’s a fourth-grader at Roosevelt Elementary School.

He said quietly at the defense table during the 10-minute hearing, flanked closely by his attorneys to his right and an interpreter he did not use sitting at the ready on his left. He smiled shyly before and afterward, and stuck close to his attorneys and his mother.

“I was scared. I was nervous,” he told reporters.

The government will get a chance to respond to Sammy’s motion at his next hearing Oct. 25, when several other Centro Legal clients will also have hearings on similar issues stemming from the Willmar crackdown. His attorneys said they expect further proceedings after that.

While Immigration Judge Kristin Olmanson excused Sammy from that hearing if he needs to be in school, Bengtson said they plan for him to be there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why the hell would they do that???? Don't they have criminals to catch? Why are they wasting their time on a 10 yr old boy? Incredible?