A wrong turn onto a bridge at the US-Canada border has a Detroit woman facing deportation
DETROIT (AP) — A woman from Guatemala says she and her two U.S.-born children were held for nearly a week by customs agents in Detroit after a phone app’s directions to the nearest Costco led them to an international bridge connecting the city to Canada.
She now faces removal proceedings in June in immigration court, according to Ruby Robinson, senior managing attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center.
On Thursday, Robinson, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and the ACLU of Michigan called for more accountability and transparency by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on detentions along the nation’s northern border with Canada.
“Our neighbors and families should not be disappearing because they made a wrong turn,” Tlaib said.
Though the northern border sees far fewer encounters with migrants than the U.S.-Mexico border, the woman’s case is not uncommon, according to Tlaib.
“We don’t know what exactly is happening. There’s a lack of transparency,” she said, adding that similar detentions likely are occurring elsewhere along the 5,525-mile (8,891-kilometer) northern border.
But Customs and Border Protection said agents encountered just over 200 undocumented people from Jan. 20 to March 21 at crossings in Detroit. About half were detained and turned over to ICE after secondary processing was complete, according to a CBP spokesman.
The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center is representing the Guatemalan woman. Robinson declined to release her name or age, only confirming that she has been in the U.S. about six years, but has no legal status. Her daughters, ages 5 and 1, were born in the U.S. Their father lives in Detroit.
more:
http://apnews.com/article/detroit-immigrant-detention-bridge-canada-border-820a956eba7d09d6f956d6a148b9bf6b?
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