The US tried to deport me to Antigua, and I just won my case. I feel relieved. But I also feel bad for the other people that are in the same proceeding I endured, and angry at this unjust system. The court is a dreadful place, where human beings are called “aliens” and the government persecutes. My case was stupid from start to finish. Even though I am free, I cannot forget. The fact that the government can turn your life upside down – just like that – is why we must continue to fight.

Following is an op ed I submitted to Caribbean media outlets in response to the concern that US deportees are causing crimes waves in receiving countries:

Dear Editors,

I would like to present another view to opinions and articles published in the local media on the perceived “deportee” dilemma and hopefully in the process add some rational reasoning to the base and emotional solutions suggested.

From my reality, it appears that the substance of these opinions and articles are based more on perceptions than on actual information. The lack of both statistical and anecdotal evidence along with the rather sensational tones taken, adds to the predicament facing all, including the “deportee”.

A common perception that is highlighted is the one that most people who have been deported are hardened criminals who are now the reason for the rise in crime. While no local data is presented with this perception, even from officials and their pronouncements, there is accessible data within the region that show this perception to be just that. And the high officials in the Immigration and Police departments must have or should have knowledge of the conclusions drawn from the report of the July 2002 CARICOM Task Force on Crime and Security in regards to the quantitative impact of “deportee” crimes and should therefore do away with the stereotypical response of being overwhelmed by the “deportee phenomenon”. For the amount of training and seminars that these officials attend one would expect much more than the reactionary publicizing of names.

Officialdom is not alone in their myopic if not outright blinkered positions. The media’s sensational portrayal of those who are deported as doctors and masters of crime brings little to the discussion as again no creditable evidence is produced to clarify these claims. The inclusion of Al Capone in one of the recent articles, which was inaccurate, highlighted an irony in that if the writer wanted to show a truer picture of the issue, the story of Marcus Garvey and the system, which happened in the same time frame as Capone’s, would have served to enlighten both the writer and the current discussion. Point of fact is that Capone was a US citizen, and thus could not have been deported. While Garvey and Capone were both convicted for tax runnings, the citizenship factor meant that Garvey, who posed no physical threat, got exiled while Capone the acknowledged murderer, was not. This citizenship fact and the question of equal rights are always at root of the deportee dilemma, now as then.

The solutions offered, from the base idea of “begging pardon” to joining in a crusade, are illogical. And being eternally skeptical, I wonder at the motivation, ulterior or otherwise, of suggesting them.

The reality of millions, of which I am one, placed before a system that stands on inequality, has nothing to do with a WTO ruling even though the vindictiveness is a truth. The vindictiveness is part of the fascist attitude dominant in America. And that attitude has no tolerance for equal rights if you are not of the state or States. The right to stand before your accuser as an equal, the right to due process, the right to be a family, the right to live in dignity, the right to be free from double and triple jeopardy are rights that are hard fought for from the immigration system but hardly won. This in turn results in the so called dilemma Antigua and others are facing.

I say so called because the very definition of the word denotes some sort of hopelessness, which, again from my reality, it does not have to be. Hope comes from the many people who stand up for and with those who have to face these inequalities. It comes from those who have taken on the system and have won, enduring degrading hardships, and still have enough to help others. It comes from the lessons learnt from these experiences. Hope comes from the goodwill of many activists, advocates and yes, lawyers, who are channels for the voices that are getting harder to hear over the deafening silence of the moralists and the shrill squawking of the media. Hope also comes from those everyday people who have looked at the problem open-mindedly and are not willing to support a system that dehumanizes an equal to the point of making them an alien.

I truly respect the space given to express my view and I submit that a larger space must be made for this discussion to be aired fully. I am a member of Families For Freedom, a multiethnic support group for people facing and fighting deportation and we have a web site: www.familiesforfreedom.org that not only highlights many of the issues that come with deportation, but also offers advice and documental resources to anyone caught up in the “dilemma”. There are also links to some of the statistical and anecdotal evidence I mentioned missing in the current discussions.

(Regional information can be gleaned from the report of the July 2002 CARICOM Task Force on Crime and Security, US ambassador Roy Austin’s findings concerning the issue in Trinidad & Tobago, sociologist Clifford Griffin’s in Barbados and UWI Prof. Bernard Headley’s work for the US embassy in Jamaica.)

Donald Anthonyson