Common Sense

The following is a mostly true account of a recent case handled by Robert Carpenter and Brian Sather, both of Carpenter & Capt, Chtd.

M grew up in a poor Mexican town. It was the kind of place people fled for a better tomorrow when they could; for themselves, but especially for their kids.

He became a permanent resident in 1993. M married a woman he loved deeply ten years later, but only after he had a good job and house in the United States. He wanted to provide for her, and prepare for raising a family.

He remembered where he came from, including his arduous journey to the United States, in search of a father who'd abandoned him at a young age. His journey left him in south Texas in a place called the Rio Grande Valley. The locals call it The Valley.

The Valley is hot. It is surrounded by desert. The inhabitants are nearly all of Mexican descent, which becomes important to M's story.

M's life in the U.S. Was good. He worked long hours, sometimes 16 a day. But he didn't mind because he was giving his family a miraculously better life than he had known as a child.

In 2007, he traveled to Mexico to see an ailing relative. He was pulled out of the immigration line at O'Hare, and detained for a most improbable arrest in 1995, 2 years after he became a permanent resident.

He shook his head in disbelief when he was arrested at O'Hare. He recalled that in 1995, while visiting The Valley, an individual approached him at a gas station and asked for help. The man was haggard, hungry and needed a ride. He was with three other men. M didn't ask their immigration status. He saw them as people in need, just as he was when he arrived in the U.S. several years earlier. A man helped him then by buying him a meal and driving him to the town where L thought he would find his absentee father. M decided to do these strangers the same favor.

45 minutes later, he had been arrested at an immigration checkpoint 60 miles from the border and booked for aiding and abetting illegal aliens. He didn't help anyone across the border, and had even refused the little money the men offered for gas. He didn't think about their immigration status, though if he had, he admitted he figured they had just made the same journey as he had several years before.

He pled guilty and was sentenced to 14 days in jail. His record was spotless since.

Now, the government intended to strip him of his green card and deport him for his crime 12 years earlier.

He cried softly during his bond hearing, where he appeared via video from a maximum security facility. His wife and children were in the gallery during the hearing. I remember because the judge allowed the children to come up to the bench to see their father on the tv monitor after the hearing. They cried openly when they saw him, and he blew them discrete kisses.

Bond was granted, and he was released, much to the relief of his employer, who was losing thousands of dollars a week because of his absence.

I met M in my office after he was released, with his wife. They were a lovely couple. Humble, affectionate, apologetic, responsible and very kind. They wondered how this could be happening to them.

My office set to work on the case. We contested everything we could, but quickly learned that transporting an illegal alien knowingly (even without direct knowledge - that is, if the transporter should have known) is the same as smuggling someone across the border for the purposes of the removal ground at issue. We fought on, arguing the law in motions and in court. We eventually sought, and procured, an agreement from the government that L should at least be able to pursue an old, expired form of relief called 212(c), that essentially could be used to excuse a removable offense.

M's hearing was today. He explained to the judge that he did what he thought was right by helping the men, but wouldn't do so again without finding out if the people he was helping were legal. A sad pause overcame the room when he said this.

Immigration Judge Carlos Cuevas granted the relief, and M's dream of a better life lives on, despite the poor judgment of the DHS officials who tried to remove him from the U.S.

I often wonder what happened to common sense. I believe a shred of it was salvaged today by a judge who was concerned, in equal parts, with common sense and fairness.