These Stone Walls

Musings of a Priest Falsely Accused

  • Home
  • About
  • Posts
  • Contact
  • Support TSW

Posted by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on May 3, 2017 11 Comments

Dreamers of Home: The Slow ICE Deportation of Kewei Chen

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan wrote that criminal aliens are subject to speedy removal, but the reality is mired in bureaucracy and a troubling profit factor.

The news media would have you believe that President Donald Trump is sending teams of alien hunters across the nation to round up and forcefully deport innocent young people who came to the United States as children to pursue a better life. The story of these so-called “DREAMers” is a hot button political and human rights issue that has been grossly distorted in and by the media.

In USAToday on April 19, the story of 23-year-old Juan Manuel Montes was a Page One headline that received international attention. It was reported that he was to be the first person protected by President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to lose that status and be deported by the Trump administration.

A day later, the Department of Homeland Security reversed its position after new information revealed that Montes was taken to Mexico in error by a customs officer who approached and interrogated him near the Mexican border after he could not produce any identification. Juan Manuel Montes did in fact have protected status, the Department of Homeland Security stated in its reversal in a news release. Unlike the first story, however, the reversal was relegated by USAToday to the last page of its news section. (Alan Gomez, “Homeland Security reverses its claim on deported DREAMer,” April 20, 2017).

There are many young people in America who find themselves in the opposite position from Juan Manuel Montes. They came to America as children, adolescents, or young adults, but then committed a crime on U.S. soil. Being imprisoned here results in their removal, but only after U.S. justice has reaped the full punishment imposed by the courts.

It’s easy to strip a story like this down to its most basic components while omitting the human beings involved. But once you include that essential human factor, these stories read very differently. It was one year ago this month that I posted the story of Augie Reyes.

Augie, a native of Honduras, came to the United States as a child. At age 18, he committed a crime. Twenty-five years later, at age 43, Augie was released from prison to be handed over to ICE agents for deportation. For 22 of those 25 years in prison, Augie had been one of my friends, and still is.

“Criminal Aliens: The ICE Deportation of Augie Reyes” tells that story with an eye-opening account of the human factor in such a removal. We must not pretend that this human factor is not real. Like many foreign born young men in American prisons, Augie had long ago resigned himself to the fact that he could not remain in the United States. He made no effort to challenge the decision of his removal by an immigration judge, and during his last year here be made plans to leave this country on the best terms possible.

Then, as my post reveals in grim detail, Augie was dragged around the country for three months from county jails to private prisons as an ICE detainee. The story was so alarming that one reader from a Baltimore law firm sent the account to Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan who published a ruling that criminal aliens are subject to “speedy removal” from the U.S.

The State of New Hampshire joined a number of other states by signing an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security for the purpose of “Rapid Repatriation.” Under that agreement, offenders who face deportation can apply to be deported after serving only one-third of their prison sentence. However, there are a long list of offenses that are excluded from the Rapid Repatriation agreement. Augie served his entire sentence. So did Kewei Chen. So will Pornchai Moontri.

When it was finally over, Augie and his family could have, and gladly would have, avoided the entire three-month deportation ordeal by purchasing a plane ticket to go home. Instead, what should have been a $1,000 plane trip turned into twenty times that cost while Augie was dragged in restraints from jail to jail around the country, never knowing where he was, where he was going, or when he was going home – a home he had not seen, in over 30 years. Augie would be adjusting to freedom and a new country and culture all at once, but first had to face a Nazi-era cattle car transport trauma that lasted three months.

ENTER THE DRAG-ON

 

When I wrote “Prisons for Profit and Other Perversions of Justice” last week, I expressed my appreciation to Our Sunday Visitor and writer, Nicholas W. Smith for a well-written article, “Incentivized Incarceration: For-profit prisons.”

I was a lot less impressed with a few of OSV’s readers who commented on that article. One reader chastized Our Sunday Visitor for wading into a political topic that Catholic media had no business in. It’s a tired old argument that holds that a political issue could not also be a moral issue. With that logic, abortion and euthanasia are easily reduced to purely political issues as well. Another commenter wrote that those in prisons did something to get there, and one prison she visited was “like a country club,” and condemned people should just stay condemned, and the Church should just stay out of it.

A month ago on These Stone Walls, I wrote a post about the departure of our friend, Kewei Chen, a young man from Shanghai, China who, like Augie Reyes and Pornchai Moontri, was stranded in a U.S. prison at age 18. That post is “Stone Walls Cannot Repel Our Sadness or Contain our Joy.” Among the many comments on it is this one by TSW reader, Dorothy Stein:

“This is an extremely well written and moving account. One part of this post is infuriating, however. You wrote that Mr. Chen’s family would gladly purchase a ticket to bring him home after his three-year absence, ‘but the bureaucracy of deportation doesn’t allow for that.’ There are a whole lot of people making money by delaying this process… There is no reason why the Chinese Consulate could not simply issue travel documents and bring this young man home. His prison sentence is over. He is now a ‘detainee.’ Yet he sits in a jail waiting for someone to do something. The jail receives $83 per day, and to date has already received over $2,000 just on this one young man. That would be the cost of a ticket home. He has already been ordered deported. There is no further court proceeding. So why is he still in jail?”

Dorothy asks a good question. Well over a month after serving his entire prison sentence, Kewei Chen is still in the custody of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and is still sitting in a county jail waiting … and waiting … and waiting. This troubling process seems not to have evolved a bit in the year since “Criminal Aliens: The ICE Deportation of Augie Reyes.”

It amazes me that the same issues at the heart of that post continue unaddressed. The ICE agents who met with Augie and who now meet with Chen instructed them that they must contact their respective consulates for travel documents before they can be sent home. However, the jail’s phone system does not allow the use of extension numbers that are required to reach consul officers. When Chen calls the Consulate of the People’s Republic of China in New York, he is told repeatedly to hang up and start over to call extensions that he is unable to reach because the jail phone system does not allow it.

A kind and brave TSW reader, whose career was that of a Senior Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. State Department, offered to help. She called the Chinese Consulate in New York four times, spoke with four different consul officers, was told four entirely different things, and then finally was told that the consulate will only speak with ICE agents or a lawyer. When she pressed, the consul officer said that the wait for needed travel documents “will be about six months to a year.”

So let’s do the math. If travel documents – which take about twenty minutes to process – are delayed by a year, and Chen sits in that jail for all that time, U.S. taxpayers will have funded over $30,000 to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement for the cost of detention while awaiting travel documents. That’s about fifteen times the cost of a ticket home that Augie, and Chen, and their families had always been willing to purchase in the first place.

The human cost to Chen himself is far more severe than what America’s taxpayers would bear. Since the vast majority of his fellow detainees speak Spanish, and no one speaks Mandarin Chinese, Chen is a young man facing months of isolation in what is effectually solitary confinement – unless something can be done to assist the Consulate to act.

LINKS IN A CHAIN BEYOND THESE STONE WALLS

The first time I wrote about our friend, Chen, was in a post entitled “The Writing on the Wall Behind These Stone Walls.” Among other social media posts, it was posted to my Linkedln page that had been established awhile back by a friend and TSW reader. I have never actually seen Linkedln or my page, but I am always amazed by its reach.

A few days after posting about Chen, I received a message from James William Harris, an American teaching at the Hua Mao Foreign Language School in Quzhou, Zhejiang near Shanghai, China. Half a world away in Concord, New Hampshire, I showed the message to Kewei Chen who was amazed and excited to see it. Chen told me that while growing up in Shanghai, he had friends who went to that school and he knew it well.

After posting “Stone Walls Cannot Repel Our Sadness or Contain Our Joy,” my post about Chen’s release from prison, I heard from James Harris again. I was surprised to learn that he and his family had left China. He now teaches Religion, English, and Chinese at Paramus Catholic High School in Paramus, New Jersey, and they are most fortunate to have his very special expertise and witness there. James Harris is a link in a chain in this story, and I plan to write more about him soon.

James is also a leader in a Chinese Catholic community in New Jersey and New York. He sent my recent post about Chen’s departure from prison to many Chinese Catholics living there. They also discussed it after their Easter Sunday Mass. Some members of that community have now reached out to Chen in detention, and others have attempted to intervene with the Chinese Consulate in New York, though not yet with success.

The latest news – after becoming the squeaky wheel that this story needs to be – is that the Chinese Consulate will issue Chen his needed travel documents “soon.” Only time will tell what “soon” means, but for Chen sitting in lonely confinement while dreaming of home, soon cannot come soon enough.

Other TSW readers have also stepped up. Clare Farr, a Trademark attorney in Western Australia and part of an Intellectual Property law firm there, has agreed to assist Kewei Chen with the Chinese Consulates in Shanghai and New York. Clare has been a pivotal figure in obtaining the interest and assistance of the Thai Consulate in the case of Pornchai Moontri. Chen is deeply moved by this Divine Mercy outreach. So am I.

In a recent letter, Chen wrote that the first thing he will do upon arriving home is to hug his mother, father and little brother tightly, having not seen them for over three years. The second thing will be to visit Kentucky Fried Chicken. Think about that. A Chinese youngster stranded in an American prison longs to return to China to eat at KFC. Go figure!

The third thing, Chen assures me, will be to find and bookmark These Stone Walls. For it is now Divine Mercy, and not prison that will be his last and most enduring memory of America.

 

22

About Fr. Gordon J. MacRae

The late Cardinal Avery Dulles and The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus encouraged Father MacRae to write. Cardinal Dulles wrote in 2005: “Someday your story and that of your fellow sufferers will come to light and will be instrumental in a reform. Your writing, which is clear, eloquent, and spiritually sound will be a monument to your trials.” READ MORE

donate

Comments

  1. Charles Wright says

    May 7, 2017 at 5:09 AM

    Wow.

    I nearly despair when I realize there must be many other Chens for whom there is no advocacy network.

    I am consoled when I realize that Grace can penetrate even this vale of tears, even into its cold, stone cellars.

    Reply
  2. Father Gordon J MacRae says

    May 4, 2017 at 4:51 PM

    SOME VERY GOOD NEWS

    Early Wednesday morning this post was published, we had trouble sending out a notice to our mailing list so we count on all of you to share it. The post was shared far and wide and the cause of justice it contains can only be helped by your sharing it. This post was widely read in China. We were so concerned that all the people helping Chen were seeing no progress, but 24 hours after this was posted we received word from the Chinese consulate in New York that travel documents are being drawn up today and will be made available to ICE agents by Friday, and our friend Kewei Chen will be on his way home very soon. He is of course elated, and deeply grateful to all of you, and so am I. With Divine Mercy blessings, Father Gordon MacRae

    Reply
    • Joan Ripley says

      May 5, 2017 at 2:13 AM

      Wonderful news, Father Gordon! You will have a high place in heaven…wish we could arrange for you to have a high place here as well. Thrilled and amazed at all you are accomplishing for thr abandonned.

      Reply
    • Helen says

      May 5, 2017 at 2:30 AM

      PRAISE GOD!! There are NO limits to His power, love and mercy. I am having Masses of Thanksgiving said for Chen, for You, Fr. Gordon. It’s the highest form of prayer and praise.

      God bless us, everyone!!

      Thank you for a fantastic job, AGAIN, Fr. Gordon! Congratulations, Chen.
      See you both in my prayers.

      Reply
  3. Domingo says

    May 4, 2017 at 1:54 PM

    May Your Will be done, O Lord, as we try to live Your Kingdom here and now. Amen.

    Reply
  4. Helen says

    May 3, 2017 at 3:52 PM

    May God’s holy angels deliver Chen home safely and SOON. Thank you for this wonderful, informative writing, Fr. Gordon.

    Often, I become flabbergasted over the life-stories you present to us. Often, even more, I wonder how YOU manage in that place. And so, how much more, the following verse stands true: “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more…” Rm.5:20. What is happening to these gentlemen is a crime, a sin, an absurdity. It MUST be grace.! Can’t be anything else!

    Still here for you, Fr. Gordon. Hang in there, all of you there. “When you reach the end of your rope, you’ve touched the beginning of God.”

    Reply
  5. Bea says

    May 3, 2017 at 3:26 PM

    When I read this quote in my devotional this morning, I couldn’t help but think of you, Father Gordon:
    “Only in eternity will we ever realize the effect our lives have had upon the souls of others.” ​Servant of God​ Elisabeth Leseur (1866-1914)
    ​Only after her death did her stout atheist husband, Dr. Felix Leseur, discover a note in his wife’s spiritual diary in which she offered her sufferings and her life for his conversion. He went on to edit and publish her spiritual writings. In 1923 he was ordained as a Dominican priest.
    Father Gordon, in eternity, you will feel overjoyed – realizing how many souls you have affected from from behind TSW.
    ​May God bless you richly. ​

    Reply
  6. Carol Hall says

    May 3, 2017 at 2:37 PM

    Agree with James & Tom on every word they spoke concerning ICE detainees!

    So glad Fr. Gordon is doing so much to help CHEN get home to China.
    I am praying Chen will be home very soon.
    Carol in Ohio

    Reply
  7. Mary Jean Diemer says

    May 3, 2017 at 12:23 PM

    Hi Fr. Gordon!
    Praying that Chen will be home soon. Tomorrow is the Novena to Our Lady of Fatima and that will be my intention for it. Blessings and prayers for you all! Jeannie

    Reply
  8. James says

    May 3, 2017 at 8:19 AM

    I read the article. You did an excellent job. I forwarded it to my Twitter and LinkedIn pages and to all the Chinese people I know here in the US. Praying for you and Chen.

    Reply
  9. Tom says

    May 3, 2017 at 8:17 AM

    Excellent article and I plan to forward this to a couple of people I know who are in the criminal justice arena because this is a problem everywhere in the country and it is immoral that people are making a profit out of other people’s misery and extending that misery for more profit!

    We are wasting taxpayer dollars to pay private prisons to keep ICE detainees for ridiculous periods of time when we could just as easily take people who have served sentences for criminal convictions from prison to the closest airport and have a US Marshall accompany them on a flight to their own country and release them at the gate at the airport in their own country. This would be a whole lot cheaper than months and months in for-profit prisons! All the bureaucratic nonsense is unnecessary. If they are illegal here and belong there, then send them there immediately and end the profiteering on this issue. Trump said he would end this and swiftly deport those he has called “bad hombres”…let’s hold his feet to the fire and make him keep his word!

    Reply

Please read the Comments Policy before commenting.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Subscribe to TSW

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Home
  • About
  • Posts
  • Contact
  • Support TSW
Copyright © 2019 Friends of Father Gordon MacRae. All Rights Reserved. Sponsored by National Center for Reason and Justice.