Deportation

Federal authorities are increasingly deporting illegal immigrants through a fast-track program that bypasses court hearings, an effort by the federal government to save money, reduce backlogs and clear detention beds. The number of detainees in California and across the nation who agreed to be deported without first seeing a judge jumped fivefold between 2004 and 2007, from 5,481 to nearly 31,554. In the first half of 2008, 17,445 speedy deportation orders were signed.

A federal immigration judge Tuesday set bail for former Reseda auto dealer Harvey Rader at $500,000 pending a deportation hearing Sept. 7. Immigration Judge John T. Zastrow denied requests from the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the California attorney general's office that Rader, who is a British subject, be held without bail until the hearing, said John Holya, an acting INS district counsel.

Federal authorities have repeatedly said their priority is to find and remove illegal immigrants with violent criminal histories, but the U.S. government's stepped-up enforcement in recent years has led to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants convicted of nonviolent crimes, according to a new study.

U.S. immigration officials announced Monday that Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant who symbolized inhumane treatment of migrants to some and brazen lawlessness to others, has been deported to her native Mexico, as immigrant-rights groups vowed to respond with massive protests. Arellano, a 32-year-old single mother, was "a criminal fugitive alien who spent a year seeking to elude federal capture" by taking refuge in a Chicago church, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.

Ten percent of inmates arriving in the Orange County sheriff's jail system during the first five weeks of a new screening program were found to be likely illegal immigrants and were set to face hearings that could result in their deportation. The statistics were from Jan. 19 to Feb. 25, as Sheriff Michael S. Carona began requiring that jail deputies screen all foreign nationals for immigration violations.

Once asked to describe his former lover, ex-FBI agent and convicted spy Richard W. Miller replied that Svetlana Ogorodnikova was "charming, outgoing, vivacious" and that she spoke atrocious English. After 11 years in prison on espionage charges, Ogorodnikova still speaks fractured English. But the charm and vivacity are in little evidence.

All inmates booked into jails throughout Los Angeles County will have their immigration status checked beginning today, but federal officials said they don't have the resources to deport all illegal immigrants with criminal records who are identified. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will prioritize illegal immigrants with prior convictions for violent crimes, including murder, rape, kidnapping and robbery. Though immigration officials plan to assess every case individually, they said some with less serious criminal records may be released back into the community.

[Krindija, Croatia, 1942] It was September 1942, harvest time in the village of Krindija, when the draft notices arrived. Four hundred souls lived there, farming potatoes, corn and sugar roots, plowing with horses, living lives much the same as their great-grandparents had a century before. They were ethnic German peasants, living in what had become a puppet state of Germany. When the notices arrived, some couldn't read them.

To U.S. officials, a new pact announced this week with Vietnam, allowing the government to deport illegal immigrants, was almost routine -- a straightforward matter of treating Vietnam like other nations. But for many among the tens of thousands of immigrants in Orange County, the nation's largest Vietnamese population center, nothing about their homeland is routine.

On a recent afternoon, 15-year-old Marlon Parras stood on stage in front of 3,000 people and talked about the hardships he and his 13-year-old sister have faced since their parents were deported to Guatemala. He wept as he spoke of his parents' decision to leave them, both American citizens, with relatives and church members so they could continue their education in suburban Atlanta. "This is not a family," Marlon told the crowd. "This is not fair."

As a result of the chaos and death caused by the earthquake in Haiti, U.S. immigration officials have decided to temporarily suspend the deportation of Haitians, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday. The decision to suspend flights carrying deportees back to Haiti has ramifications for thousands of Haitian illegal immigrants in the United States, officials said. "Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Assistant Secretary John Morton today halted all removals to Haiti for the time being in response to the devastation caused by yesterday's earthquake," DHS spokesman Matt Chandler said.

Over the last few weeks, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck twice has reaffirmed the department's commitment to Special Order 40, the 30-year-old policy that forbids officers from making routine inquiries about the immigration status of people they encounter or detain. The contexts and manner of Beck's affirmation suggest a couple of interesting -- and significant -- differences between the new chief's approach and that of his predecessor, William Bratton. Even after three decades, Special Order 40 remains the most controversial of LAPD's policing policies, as well as one of its most vital.

The Cambodian government Saturday sent a group of Muslim Uighur asylum-seekers back to China, where rights group fear they will receive long prison terms or death sentences for alleged involvement in violent protests this year. Beijing has already executed nine Uighurs and condemned five others to death for their role in the July protests in the western province of Xinjiang that led to deadly clashes between Uighurs and Han, the majority ethnic group in China. Increased migration by Han to the restive region, home to the Turkic Uighurs, has heightened ethnic tensions.

The Supreme Court said Monday it would consider whether a strict immigration law called for deporting noncitizens convicted of repeat misdemeanor drug offenses. The case before the court involves a legal immigrant from Texas who pleaded guilty to possessing less than two ounces of marijuana and later pleaded guilty to possessing a single tablet of Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication. Although the convictions were minor, judges in some regions have ruled that two misdemeanor convictions for drug possession can count as an "aggravated felony," which is grounds for deportation.

The man who fatally stabbed a woman at her Mid-City apartment last week, hours after she filed a domestic violence report against him, was twice deported to Mexico and had two prior felony convictions for domestic violence, according to government records. On Monday, authorities formally identified the man, who was fatally shot by police as he attacked and killed Flor Medrano, 30, in her apartment in the 1300 block of Cochran Avenue on Wednesday. The attacker, Daniel Carlon, 23, was described as a Mexican national who was living here illegally and had a history of threatening and harassing women.

The U.S. government has cleared a pathway to citizenship for the illegal immigrant wife of an Iraq war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress, the family's attorney said Thursday. U.S. Army Spc. Jack Barrios, a 26-year-old Los Angeles native who still experiences nightmares and depression after a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq, had faced the collapse of his family after his wife, Frances, was placed in removal proceedings. Frances, a 23-year-old Guatemala native, was illegally brought to the United States at age 6 by her mother but grew up in Van Nuys, where the couple live with their two young children.

Re "Cops, not ICE," Opinion, Oct. 27 Outgoing Chief William J. Bratton is all wrong in his article regarding the work of the Los Angeles Police Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The community at large does not condone the deportation of victims and witnesses; what it wants is the intervention and assistance of ICE in the deportation of criminals. And for ICE to do its job, it needs the cooperation of the LAPD. It is something officers on the street want to do but are kept from doing because of wrongheaded policies.

The nightmares still plague him. The terrifying mortar attacks. The loss of an Albanian soldier and ally, mutilated by shrapnel. The Iraqi children, bloodied and battered, lined up for medical care at the U.S. base at Mosul. Two years after returning from his service in Iraq, U.S. Army Spc. Jack Barrios, 26, is fighting sleeplessness, sudden angry outbursts, aversion to emotional intimacy and other fallout from his post-traumatic stress disorder. But as he undergoes counseling and swallows anti-depressants, the soldier is fighting an even bigger battle: to keep his family from collapsing as his wife, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, faces deportation.

Luz Maria Diaz knew what happened to illegal immigrants at the Wake County jail. But her teenage daughters didn't. So when the girls were arrested after fighting on their high school campus in September, they freely admitted that they were born in Mexico. Detention officers at the jail checked their immigration status and promptly handed them over to federal authorities. Now Diana, 16, and her sister, Yolanda, 18, are battling to stay in the country. "I never thought this could happen . . . for a simple fight," their mother said.

The cancer-stricken father of a U.S. Marine serving in Afghanistan was arrested at his Florida home last week and is scheduled for deportation to his native Hungary. The detention of Janos Lutz, 53, has outraged his family, including his son, Pfc. Janos V. "Johnny" Lutz, a machine-gunner serving in Helmand province. "We are out here fighting . . . and I find out the United States of America is deporting my dad?" Lutz, 21, said Thursday in a telephone interview from Afghanistan.