Thousands of people who fail to meet the legal requirements to remain in the United States are deported from the country every year by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 315,943 people who were either already illegally living in the US or trying to enter the country were removed in 2014, with the rules stating that travel documents should be obtained by deportation officers to enable the immigrants to be returned to their countries of origin.A family advocacy group has released a new report in which it claims that ICE has started to make use of fake ID papers to facilitate the deportation of some immigrants. The New York-based Families for Freedom group report highlights four cases of immigrants apparently being deported either without papers or with fake papers and suggests that these stories are not uncommon.
ICE spokeswoman Sarah Maxwell claims that no one has ever been knowingly deported by ICE without valid ID papers, according to Al Jazeera. There are a number of reasons why deporting people with no or fake ID papers cause difficulties, not only making it hard for them to find work, get medical assistance and social services where they are going but also sometimes causing them to be wrongly arrested for trying to enter that country illegally.
“To us, a travel document is much more than a piece of paper,” says Abraham Paulos, the Families for Freedom head. “It is the weight that determines our freedom or imprisonment, health or harm, family unity or separation, or injustice and rights.”
