Alfaro was born in Houston, Tex., in 1979. She left the U.S. just shy of her 5th birthday and largely grew up in El Salvador with her father. Her mother, a naturalized U.S. citizen, remained in Texas. Alfaro, who grew up speaking Spanish, has few memories of her early childhood in the U.S. but she always knew she was a citizen. Around the time she turned 16, with U.S. birth certificate in hand, she applied and was approved for a U.S. passport. She saved up some cash and purchased a round-trip ticket to New York in 1998. Alfaro’s partner had family there, and she wanted take a short vacation there. But that two-week trip was cut short by immigration authorities at New York City’s JFK Airport. “They put me into a room with a lot of immigration agents,” recalls Alfaro. She was shackled and handcuffed and repeatedly asked to write her down name only to have the paper torn up by the agents. Alfaro, who was just 18 at the time, was confused; it was her first time traveling alone, and the agents mostly spoke to her in English, which she didn’t understand. But it soon became clear to her that she was being accused of falsifying her identity. For the first few hours, Alfaro says she stood by what she knew to be true: She was born in Texas, and had a birth certificate and other documents to prove it. But as the hours wore on, Alfaro says she started to feel defeated. Alfaro signed a sworn statement that consisted of more than 30 questions. The document indicates that the statement was given “In the Spanish language,” and without the use of an interpreter. Alfaro was bound for an entire night and the shackles and handcuffs weren’t removed until she agreed to sign a statement swearing that her name was Maria Mabel Alfaro—her half-sister’s name. One of the agents threatened her with prison. Bryan Johnson, a Long Island, New York-based attorney who has been helping Alfaro for about a year, who has scoured government documents related to to the case, finds the admission troubling. “They asked her leading questions,” he says. And that’s true: The statements were a series of yes or no questions, that gave little room for actual answers. Nevertheless, Alfaro was exhausted from the interrogation, and finally felt relief after agreeing to sign the document. She was stripped of her passport and was deported to El Salvador the next day. “It’s because I speak Spanish and the immigration agents are racist,” says Alfaro. “They can’t believe that someone who doesn’t speak English can actually be a citizen. It’s like speaking Spanish makes you criminal.” #Shameful #CIRNOW
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 17:09:26 +0000
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