Feeling hopeless in custody, many drop claims to remain in US, leave voluntarily

Seattle: Ramon Rodriguez Vazquez was a farmworker for 16 years in southeast Washington state, where he and his wife of 40 years raised four children and 10 grandchildren. The 62-year-old was a part of a tight-knit community and never committed a crime.

On Feb. 5, immigration officers who came to his house looking for someone else took him into custody. He was denied bond, despite letters of support from friends, family, his employer and a physician who said the family needed him.

He was sent to a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centre in Tacoma, Washington, where his health rapidly declined in part because he was not always provided with his prescription medication for several medical conditions, including high blood pressure. Then there was the emotional toll of being unable to care for his family or his sick granddaughter. Overwhelmed by it all, he finally gave up. At an appearance with an immigration judge, he asked to leave without a formal deportation mark on his record. The judge granted his request, and he moved back to Mexico, alone. His case is an exemplar of the impact of the Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to deport millions of migrants on an accelerated timetable, casting aside years of procedure and legal process in favour of expedient results.

Similar dramas are playing out at immigration courts across the country, accelerating since early July, when ICE began opposing bond for anyone detained regardless of their circumstances.

“He was the head of the house, everything — the one who took care of everything,” said Gloria Guizar, 58, Rodriguez’s wife. “Being separated from the family has been so hard. Even though our kids are grown, and we’ve got grandkids, everybody misses him.”

Leaving the country was unthinkable before he was held in a jail cell. The deportation process broke him. It is impossible to know how many people left the US voluntarily since President Donald Trump took office in January because many leave without telling authorities. But Trump and his allies are counting on “self-deportation,” the idea that life can be made unbearable enough to make people leave voluntarily.

The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts, said judges granted “voluntary departure” in 15,241 cases.