Lancaster man files wrongful deportation lawsuit

Lancaster man files wrongful deportation lawsuit
By CIARAN MCEVOY, City News Service 28.FEB.08

A 30-year-old developmentally disabled U.S. citizen filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday claiming that immigration officials, assisted by Southland law enforcement, mistakenly and illegally deported him to Mexico.
Lancaster resident Pedro “Peter’’ Guzman and his mother, Maria Carbajal, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. It names the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as two of its defendants.
An emotional Carbajal, flanked by her attorneys and family members at a news conference Wednesday morning, said her son was still traumatized by his ordeal.
Guzman, who was born in East Los Angeles and grew up in Los Angeles County, was deported in May 2007 after his conviction on a misdemeanor trespassing charge.
Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, said Guzman repeatedly told deputies and ICE officials that he was born in Mexico and even listed a city and date.
“The whole story is not being told,’’ he said.
At at news conference at the ACLU’s Los Angeles office, attorney Mark Rosenbaum called the government’s version of events “unmitigated lies.’’
Representatives from ICE were not immediately available for comment.
According to the lawsuit, Guzman was bused from a Los Angeles County jail to Tijuana where he was dropped off with the clothes on his back and three dollars in his pocket.
Guzman was stranded in northwestern Mexico for 85 days after being deported, the lawsuit said.
Cognitively impaired, having a poor memory, and unable to read above a second-grade level, he survived by begging, eating out of trash cans and bathed in rivers, the lawsuit said.
Carbajal temporarily left her job at a Jack in the Box restaurant to search for her son. Guzman’s family looked for him in Tijuana’s most dangerous neighborhoods, jails and hospitals, the ACLU said. Carbajal scanned online photos of the dead from a Tijuana morgue, the ACLU said.
Carbajal was first notified that her son had been deported when her daughter-in-law called her with the information after Guzman tried telephoning one of his brothers, the ACLU said.
A gaunt, weary Guzman was eventually located after being detained in Calexico by a U.S. Border Patrol agent, who noticed that Guzman had an active warrant for failing to contact his probation officer, the lawsuit said. Guzman was then jailed on the warrant before his eventual release, the lawsuit said.
Guzman is now back in Lancaster with his family, Carbajal said.
The lawsuit also claims that ICE failed to help Guzman’s family locate him.
Addressing reporters Wednesday, Jim Brosnahan, an attorney for the San Francisco-based law firm Morrison & Foerster who is representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, denounced ICE and the Sheriff’s Department for what he said was racism against Latinos.
“Part of the immigration service is out of control,’’ he said. “What happened here is a disgrace.’’
Rosenbaum agreed. “Our government treated the color of Guzman’s skin as conclusive, irrefutable evidence that Peter was not and could not be a U.S. citizen,’’ he said.
Guzman’s recent problems stem from his March 2007 arrest for allegedly attempting to board an airplane at General William J. Fox Airfield Airport in Lancaster and for allegedly trying to steal a truck, according to court documents.
During his initial booking process in jail, Guzman participated in an attack on another inmate, according to his police report, which was attached with the lawsuit.Also attached to the lawsuit was Guzman’s birth certificate, which lists his place of birth as Los Angeles County.Guzman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of trespassing and was sentenced to 90 days in jail.During his stay in jail, Guzman suffered a head injury from what he said was a fall, the lawsuit said. He was subsequently prescribed psychotropic drugs after telling jail officials he was hearing voices, the lawsuit said.
On April 26, 2007, Guzman was interviewed by Sandra Figueras, a custodial assistant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the lawsuit said.
On May 10, 2007, Guzman — who has a limited understanding of Spanish — signed a form that effectively removed his legal rights to a deportation hearing and stated that he was a citizen of Mexico, the lawsuit said.
Guzman “could not read and did not understand the contents’’ of the form, according to the lawsuit.
Rosenbaum said Wednesday that the Sheriff’s Department and ICE ignored documentation that said Guzman was a U.S. citizen.
In June 2007, ACLU said it asked a federal judge to order ICE to make “reasonable and diligent efforts’’ to locate Guzman.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages as well as attorneys’ fees and a declaration that the actions of ICE and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department were unconstitutional.