MIAMI HERALD November 15, 2005
IMMIGRATION Who put the suspicious paperwork in the immigration file of a Mexican that triggered his wrongful deportation? The Department of Homeland Security wants to know why immigration agents deported Camerino Moreno Villa to Mexico on Oct. 6 -- only to have to bring him back to Miami under a cloud of embarrassment because of a judge's order. U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan said Monday he did not believe Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials deliberately violated his order to keep Moreno in South Florida until Oct. 16 for a hearing on his fate. But the judge said he would still consider holding immigration authorities in contempt of court if Homeland Security concludes there was official misconduct in the high-profile case. Jordan called the immigration agency's deportation ''troubling,'' but said he was at least encouraged that ICE officials appear to be taking steps to prevent another Moreno-type deportation from happening again. Moreno, 51, has been released while he tries to resolve his immigration problems. Over nearly a quarter of a century, Moreno has been stopped at the border seven times, made it across five times and was formally deported four times. From California, where he was a farmworker, he eventually made his way to South Florida. Detained for allegedly being in the country illegally, Moreno was awaiting an October hearing in his case when immigration officials sent him packing and put him on a plane to the Mexican border -- violating the judge's order. Authorities at the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade wrongly deported the father of three U.S.-born sons -- even after an immigration officer learned of the judge's order in September and then removed the warrant from Moreno's file that should have stopped his deportation. ''I was convinced the removal could not take place,'' deportation officer Michael Finnerty testified on Monday. The problem was, another immigration employee put a second warrant in Moreno's file -- apparently without his supervisors' knowledge -- that led to the Mexican's premature deportation in violation of the judge's order that had extended the deadline by 10 days. In court papers, Marion Dillis, the officer in charge of Krome's deportation operations, described Moreno's removal as a mistake -- ``an apparent breakdown in communications.'' She said her review did not uncover ''any information that suggests Moreno's deportation resulted from a willful or deliberate attempt to violate'' the judge's order. But in court papers, Dillis also said she was ''unable to determine which employee created the warrant that was used to execute the removal order of Moreno,'' noting that it does not appear to be a copy of the original. She said that because the matter involves ''allegations of potential misconduct,'' it will be further investigated by Homeland Security. The judge asked Dillis if she was satisfied with the results of her initial inquiry. ''Not completely,'' Dillis testified. ``I want to get to the bottom of this.'' Jordan set a deadline of Dec. 5 to decide whether to weigh in on Moreno's immigration problems. Meanwhile, immigration officials said they want to return Moreno to his homeland, though a government attorney, Milton Aponte, said immigration officials would allow him to exhaust his appeals before facing deportation. Moreno's claim that he is entitled to stay is based on an immigration amnesty offered to undocumented migrants in the mid-1980s. To qualify, migrants had to have arrived in the United States before 1982. Moreno, whose immigration odyssey began on March 31, 1981, when he crossed the Mexican border into California, applied for temporary residence under terms of the amnesty in 1988. The immigration service issued him a temporary resident card valid until Nov. 29, 1990, pending a resolution of his application. His petition was denied for lack of evidence. Moreno's lawyer, Matthew Archambeault, appealed, but it was rejected. He applied again in August. ''I want to stay in this country,'' said Moreno, who attended Monday's hearing with his three sons. ``I want to take care of my family.''
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