Virginia Beach appeals return to Scotland, among immigrants deported for criminal convictions (Washington Post)

Virginia Beach appeals return to Scotland, among immigrants deported for criminal convictions

By KRISTIN DAVIS, Wednesday, March 9, 7:24 PM

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — With a trace of a burr, Michelle Cathon says her native Scotland is a place she barely remembers. It’s also a place she doesn’t want to return to.

She was 12 when she moved to Virginia Beach to live with her Scottish mother, who’d married a U.S. serviceman. She became a permanent resident, but she never sought citizenship.

Virginia Beach became home. Cathon, now 39, married and had three children, two of whom are mothers themselves.

Soon, though, she might be forced back to her native country for good.

Convicted of drug and credit card fraud charges, she is among an ever-growing number of immigrants being deported from the United States based on criminal convictions.

After launching a criminal alien program in 2007 that targets legal and illegal immigrants convicted of certain crimes, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stepped up deportations.

The agency removed 128,345 immigrants in 2009, according to an annual report released in August. An overwhelming majority were from Mexico; nearly 30 percent of the deportations were for drug-related offenses.

Six years ago, Cathon pleaded guilty to a felony drug possession charge in Virginia Beach. She was given a three-year suspended sentence and supervised probation.

Cathon was back in court in 2007, on a charge of cocaine possession with the intent to distribute in Norfolk, according to online court records. She pleaded guilty for a second time, and a judge sentenced her to a year in jail.

Behind bars, she earned a GED, took parenting and career-readiness classes and completed a host of other programs.

She also wrote a letter to a judge describing the changes she saw in herself. She called her past behavior inexcusable.

“However, I do have a drug problem,” Cathon wrote. “I am ready to face my problems in our society, in everyday living. I want to become a responsible and productive member of society again.”

A report from the sheriff’s office, filed among her court records, praised her attitude and work ethic while in jail and described her as cooperative and courteous to the staff and fellow inmates.

But there would be more charges. In 2008, she pleaded guilty in Virginia Beach to credit card fraud, possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute and conspiracy to possess a controlled substance, court records show. A judge sentenced her to nine years, but suspended all of it.

ICE caught up with her in November, taking her into custody at a probation office. Cathon spent Thanksgiving and Christmas at Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth.

“You just want to stay in bed with the covers over your head,” she said during a recent interview there.

In a civil suit filed in Virginia Beach Circuit Court, Cathon claims her attorneys never advised her that the guilty pleas could land her in detention or get her deported.

Her new attorney, William McKee, says they should have. The Sixth Amendment, which guarantees a fair and speedy trial, requires it, according to the lawsuit. They want the convictions set aside.

“I pleaded guilty to take a plea bargain,” Cathon said.

“Most people are completely unaware that long time residents are removed and deported as a result of some kind of criminal action years ago,” McKee said.

Federal law lists a host of crimes that can lead to deportation for legal immigrants, from murder and rape to drug and firearm trafficking and certain cases of theft and forgery.

Cathon will remain in jail until the courts sort out her claims.

She learned of the birth of her grandson over the phone. Sh e’d planned to be in the delivery room. In January, her middle child turned 19. Her oldest daughter turns 21 this month. Cathon suspects she’ll miss that, too.

Her options are dwindling, McKee said.

An immigration judge already has ordered her out the country, a decision Cathon is appealing. The Virginia Supreme Court recently took up a case in which two immigrants sought to have their sentences modified to avoid deportation. Both claimed their lawyers never told them what could happen.

The court ruled against them.

“It’s very stressful not knowing what your future is,” Cathon said.

If forced to return to Scotland, she added, “I don’t even know where I’m going from the airport.”