Last Updated on Saturday, 21 March 2009 17:58 Written by Karen Yi Thursday, 04 December 2008 00:00

NEW YORK, USA: For 30 years he has called America his home. The place where his four children were born and raised. The land where his family and friends reside. The country that still embraces his dreams of a better future. And now, for Jamaican immigrant Roxroy Salmon, the idea of “home” could change. Salmon faces deportation, as immigration officials and community advocates debate whether he belongs here, or back in Jamaica.

Since 2007, Salmon, 52, has been fighting to stay in this country and remain with his family. “I deserve the right, like any other man to be in this country,” says Salmon, who has four children, all American citizens along with an American citizen common-law wife. He has been here for 30 years.

Salmon arrived undocumented in the US in 1977 on a promise by his father to get an education and attain his residency. Soon after, Salmon realised his father had other intentions. “He wanted to have me work in the store where he was doing illegal activity without my knowledge,” says Salmon. In his first two years in the country he was charged with minor drug offences, given a conditional discharge and charged with disorderly conduct. Salmon accepted the convictions, though he says he did nothing wrong.

In 1989, Salmon had another run-in with the law. He was charged with drug possession and the sale of narcotics, but says he was set up, “I am a victim of the system by the cops setting me up… putting the drugs on me and saying I was selling drugs.” But Salmon pleaded guilty. “It’s my word against a cop’s word and I know I would not stand a chance.”

Salmon has been seeking a path to legalisation ever since. In 2001, Salmon’s mother petitioned for his citizenship, but in 2007 Salmon received a notice to appear in immigration court due to his past convictions.

The 1996 immigration laws passed under the Clinton presidency made minor crimes, including drug offences, an automatic reason for deportation for immigrants -- illegal and legal -- and curtailed the immigration judges’ discretion to take other factors, such as family ties, into account.

“Citizens break the law don’t they,’’ said Maria Muentes, co-founder of Families for Freedom, an advocacy organisation for immigrants facing deportation, who is working on Salmon’s case, “They are tried and they are punished, but after do they have additional punishments for the rest of their life?”

For Salmon this could mean returning to Jamaica and leaving his family behind. “What are they going to send me back to?” says Salmon, “They want me to feel pain. All my family is here.”

Since the 1996 laws were passed, more than 670,000 immigrants have been deported due to criminal convictions. Human Rights Watch reports that these deportations have separated 1.6 million families.

“If you look at who these laws are applied to,” says Muentes, “it’s really based on a racist notion of who can be here.” “Who’s likely to be looked at as a criminal? It’s not Germans, it’s not Canadians, it’s not Englishmen. It’s Mexicans, it’s Jamaicans, it’s Dominicans -- it’s people of colour.”

Organisations such as New York-based Families for Freedom and The New Sanctuary Movement, a faith-based initiative to present immigration with a human face, are working together to keep Salmon with his family in the US, along with other families in similar situations.

“Everyday there are kids being separated from their parents, spouses from their spouses. Kids go to bed with the sense that maybe I will not see my mommy in the morning, maybe I will not see my daddy in the morning,” says Juan Carlos Ruiz, director of the New York Sanctuary Coalition.

 
With increased policing and workplace raids, and the recent crackdown on undocumented immigrants, Salmon fears that he may be next, “Why do they want to come and take me away from my kids? How would they like someone to come and take their kids away from them?”

A 2007 report by the National Council of La Raza, “Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America’s Children,” found that approximately two-thirds of children of undocumented immigrants are born in the US.

“Who is going to speak for the children who will be left fatherless if parents are deported?” says Ruiz. The current immigration laws are tearing families apart, leaving children -- many of whom are American citizens -- parentless.

One such child could be Elijah Salmon, Roxroy’s 12-year-old son, who risks losing his father when the case is decided in January. “My father did nothing wrong,” says Elijah who is part of the youth movement at Families for Freedom, “He teach me about the bible and stuff.” Elijah says he feels “sad” and “bad” about his father’s situation but has hope, “I feel good cause people try to help my father.”

And Salmon is not taking this sitting down. “I’m fighting that I don’t have to leave my kids,” he says. He is actively campaigning for his cause and has rallied a slew of supporters behind him.

“This is a country founded on the ideal of second chance, of opportunities, somebody shouldn’t be doomed or condemned because of one or two questionable mistakes,” says Ruiz, “A person should not be reduced to their past.”

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 take a retroactive look at criminal offences even if immigrants have already served their sentence. The 1996 laws were passed in the aftermath of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, what Muentes considers a rushed and “misguided linking of immigration with terrorism.”

“I’m not a bad person, I’m not a criminal, I’m not a terrorist, things just happen,” says Salmon. But his convictions, though minor, may be enough to send him back to Jamaica.

US Immigration and Enforcement statistics, report that approximately 275,000 illegal aliens have been deported in fiscal year 2007, an almost a 40 percent increase from the 195,000 removed in fiscal year 2006.

Still, Salmon looks hopefully towards the future, drawing his strength from his family and his faith.

“It’s a journey, but I’m going to overcome it.” “This is the greatest country on Earth,” he says.

If he were to attain his citizenship he would study theology and get a job.

“By the sweat of my brow and my breath, I want to work,” says Salmon. “That’s the American dream.”