Integrity Legal

In an interesting a convoluted situation, it appears that United States officials deported an American Citizen…on more than one occasion. To quote another website:

“Newly released documents show that federal investigators twice ignored FBI records and other evidence and deported a North Carolina native to Latin America, The Charlotte Observer”

One of the most interesting, and somewhat tragic, aspects of the situation is the fact that the Citizen in question could not speak any Spanish and was also mentally ill. To quote the Charlotte Observer:

“At the time of Mark Lyttle’s deportation, immigration officials had criminal record checks that said he was a U.S. citizen. They had his Social Security number and the names of his parents. They had Lyttle’s own sworn statement that he had been born in Rowan County. None of this stopped them from leaving Lyttle, a mentally ill American who speaks no Spanish, alone and penniless in Mexico, where he has no ties.”

Cases such as this really bring to light important issues regarding the overwhelming power of the United States Federal government. The bureaucracy of the United States government is staggering and at times people fall through the cracks. In this situation, the American Citizen at issue not only fell through the cracks, but he should never have been put in a position where he could have fallen through a crack. Had the federal authorities simply done their due diligence, they would have learned that the subject was a Citizen of the United States of America and therefore, could not be subject to deportation. More importantly, he was a native born Citizen of the United States of America. This is important because American Citizens who are born American Citizens cannot lose their Citizenship, except through the process of renunciation. Further, an American Citizen cannot be deported. Therefore the authorities representing the US government made a grave error by wrongfully deporting someone with US citizenship.

It is very disconcerting to see this kind of thing happening to Americans. However, it should be noted that the American deportee had a history of mental illness and actually had claimed Mexican Citizenship on prior occasions. Even still, other government agencies had informed the Immigration officials that the deportee was a Citizen. Further when the deportee went to the US Embassy in Guatemala, “It took someone in Guatemala one day to prove he was a citizen.”This begs the question, if this was easily ascertainable overseas, why couldn’t US Immigration officials figure it out while in the USA.

Tags: American Citizen, CBP, deportation, ICE, US Embassy, US Immigration
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