by Stephanie Moon

 ICE(Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was created in 2003 after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. ICE includes three divisions. The most-known division is the Enforcement and Removal Operations, which arrests, detains, and deports any undocumented immigrants residing in the United States. ICE has a history of detaining legal citizens and attempting to deport them based on incomplete, uncorroborated reports. Legal citizens who are detained have to fight tooth and nail to prove that they should not be deported, usually without an attorney. Both children of immigrants and citizens who were born out of the country are usually the targeted victims of this unlawful detention. One of these many victims is Davino Watson. Watson’s father was born in Jamaica but became a legal citizen in 2002. Through his father, Davino Watson obtained his citizenship. ICE agents found Watson when he was serving time in New York after pleading guilty to selling cocaine. While being questioned for his immigration status, Watson stated that he was a citizen through his father. To ensure he was being truthful, one of the ICE agents looked up Watson’s father in the immigration databases, but instead of Hopeton Ulando Watson, Davino’s father, the ICE agent pulled up Hopeton Livingston Watson who was not a U.S. citizen. One simple and careless mistake changed Watson’s life. After serving his sentence, he was transferred to ICE custody for 1,273 days. Like many, Watson did not have an attorney available to him in order to prove his citizenship during his immigration detention from May 8, 2008 to November 3, 2011.  According to Watson, “you feel like your rights are stripped from you. You feel hopeless… I spent many nights crying.” An immigration judge ordered to have him deported, but when Watson’s appeal went to the U.S. District Court, the attorney pressured ICE to review the files, which they should have done when Watson first declared he was a U.S. citizen in custody. When ICE found they had made a mistake, they quickly released Watson. In 2016, Watson sued for wrongful imprisonment and  U.S. District Judge, Jack Weinstein ruled that Watson was entitled to a measly $82,500 and an apology from the government. Sadly, Watson’s case is only one of the thousands of legal citizens who have been taken into custody by ICE. Another victim was Ada Morales, a Guatemalan born naturalized U.S. citizen. In 2004, she was held overnight in county jail when authorities mistakenly identified her as an illegal immigrant. When she was arrested for welfare fraud five years later, the officer did not use her social security in the databases, which would have confirmed her legal citizenship, and ICE detained her. For this, she spent another night in prison where she was strip-searched and her anxiety medications were taken. When Morales recalls of this night, she sobs because of the panic attacks as authorities accused her of lying. The next morning, her husband brought her U.S. passport to Morales’ court hearing and Morales was freed. ICE mistakenly detained her TWICE when she was legal and innocent.  Legal fights to prove citizenship is incredibly difficult especially without an attorney. The databases are extremely flawed with inconsistent digital fingerprint records before 2010. Therefore, ICE agents are told to check multiple databases when determining someone’s status, but many agents, wishing to save time, neglect to do this which leads to life ruining mistakes. In 2010, over 4,000 citizens were detained and some even deported by ICE. ICE agents’ mistakes that can easily be fixed, destroy lives as shown by two examples out of the thousands of victims.