In October 2007, illegal immigrant Cecil Harvey was deported to his native country of Barbados. Because the former Brooklyn resident was held on Rikers Island for more than a month prior to his deportation, as opposed to the standard two day detention, he filed suit, claiming his “civil rights” to be violated. In 2009, New York City settled Harvey’s suit with $145,000 of taxpayer’s money.
According to Fox News, the deportee had “a long rap sheet,” including an arrest in the Bedford-Styvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn for drinking an open bottle of Bacardi rum in publc. Though that offense was a misdemeanor (punishable by a fine of not more than twenty-five dollars or imprisonment of up to five days or both), upon being searched, police discovered “crack cocaine residue” in his pocket.
The Brooklyn District Attorney says Harvey pleaded guilty to the drug charge, but that the judge “ordered him released on his own recognizance.”
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Though he was eventually delivered to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), he was released soon after. It wasn’t until he was arrested for failure to appear in court for his drug case that he was held on Rikers Island for a month, where he was supposed to be picked up by ICE.
Rikers Island houses approximately 4,000 inmates per year, of which 3,000 are illegal immigrants.
ICE spokesman Harold Ort asserts, “I cannot speak for Rikers as to why he was not released to us within 48 hours. ICE lodges a detainer on removable aliens and the jail then contacts us when the alien is ready to be picked up by ICE.”
A city Law Department representative claims that the incident is an isolated case, while the head of the city’s federal litigation division insists, “The Department of Correction has tightened its procedures to prevent a reoccurrence.”
However, according to Fox News, “the landmark settlement has prompted the Correction Department to dump scores of illegal immigrants on the streets, since federal officials often fail to pick them up within the required two-day window.” One would expect this information to quell protestors’ claims that the Arizona immigration bill is unnecessary.
Likewise, statistics have always indicated that the increase in the number of illegal aliens within the United States has been directly related to the increase in the number of crimes committed. In 2006, Representative Steve King released statistics which indicated that twelve Americans are murdered daily by illegal aliens. An additional thirteen are killed daily by drunk illegal alien drivers. An AAA Foundation for Traffic Study report indicates that twenty percent of fatal accidents involved a driver without a valid license. Furthermore, eight American children fall victim to sexual abuse by illegal aliens daily.
In a 2005 report of 55,322 illegal aliens released by the Government Accountability Office, data shows that the 55,000 illegal aliens “represented a total of 459, 614 arrests,” of which total approximately 700,000 criminal offenses, averaging thirteen offenses per alien. Thirty six percent of the aliens were arrested at least five times before, directly contradicting the city Law Department Representative’s claim that Harvey’s case was an isolated incident.
Harvey was supported by immigration-rights advocacy groups, who claimed that his rights were violated when he was held in custody for over a month. But the dictionary defines civil rights as those “belonging to an individual by virtue of citizenship.”
And what about the civil rights of the Americans who fall victim to the illegal aliens on a daily basis? Guess they need their own advocacy group since the federal government isn’t up to the task of protecting our states from the alien invasion.
Photo: AP Images
