ICE deports man who came to U.S. for political asylum; has autistic child

Augusto Raymundo Jesus tried to do it the right way.

He really did.

Twenty-two years ago, Jesus' mother sent him away from his native Guatemala. His brother had just been killed in a car bomb during a civil war there and she feared for her young son's life.

Her money got him to Mexico. Jesus walked across the country -- it took him about a year -- to the United States border where he sought political asylum. It was granted and for the next 21 years, he worked hard.

Until three weeks ago, he was the owner of Ray's Quality Framing, a commercial and residential construction company in Cedar City, Utah, that last year provided 10 jobs for the community.


That was until he heard a knock on the door three weeks ago.

Jesus was cooking a Dutch oven dinner for the family's part-time catering business. He was home with his children while his wife ran an errand at the store when three U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents landed on his doorstep.

You see, when Jesus was granted political asylum in the United States, he understood it was a permanent visa.

Apparently not.

He learned that about seven years ago when, after living and working in the U.S. for 15 years, he applied for citizenship.

He was informed, at that point, that his visa had expired. He also learned that to renew it he would have to leave the country for a year to a year-and-a-half, pay about $7,000 in various fees and, well, maybe be granted his return to the United States.

As a husband with five young children, he could not afford the fees, could not afford to take the family to Guatemala for an extended stay, could not afford to be separated from his family. So, he stuck it out.

He continued to work hard, take care of his family, go to church, remain a positive influence on his community. Last year, his wife said, he paid $20,000 in taxes, worked with about 15 different construction companies in the county and kept his head above water, even during a down economy.

It was all fine until he went to renew his driver's license last month. As part of the Utah renewal system, you are fingerprinted and a background check is run. It was then that the old deportation order was found. It was then that ICE decided to round up Jesus and send him back to Guatemala.

"Three ICE agents ran up on him and tried to take him down to the ground," Kacie said. "One agent realized his 3-year-old son was right there and asked the other agent in charge to let him up. I got there and started crying and the agent in charged yelled 'It's not the end of the world!'

"Ray always paid taxes, donates to charities, owned his own business, and obeyed all laws. This is just not right. There are a lot of bad 'illegals' out there that need to be deported. Not Ray," Kacie said.

Less than two weeks ago, the Obama administration announced a plan to review the cases of 300,000 undocumented aliens currently in deportation proceedings to identify, what it called, "low-priority offenders" -- people who have no criminal background, no warrants, no list of prior arrests, no fraud or stolen identification.

Apparently ICE officials in the southern Utah office didn't get the memo, because Jesus was placed at the head of the line. In a short time, he went from valued member of the community to personna non grata.

He was tossed out. His wife was treated rudely by the agents and his autistic 7-year-old son was not allowed to give him a hug goodbye.

It came to a head, apparently, minutes after he spoke to his wife at about 5 p.m. Tuesday, talking to her via telephone from a jail in Florence, Ariz., where he and other deportees were being detained.

As his wife says, about two minutes after they spoke -- a conversation that included how efforts were being made to contact Senators and House members from the state of Utah to intervene -- Jesus was taken from the jail, put on a plane and sent back to Guatemala.

Apparently, Kacie says, the feds were listening in on his telephone call.

Mike Empey, an aide for Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, seems to agree.

I contacted him via email to lend support to intervention by Matheson and the rest of the Utah delegation. This was what I heard back:

"Well, not good news on the Ray Jesus case. Apparently right after his wife talked to him on the phone last night some ICE agents took him out of detention and deported him. He called her today from Guatemala. She thinks they may have monitored her phone conversation about media and congressional office involvement and decided on immediate action. Of course there isn’t any way to prove that happened - always the chance of a coincidence (??) We will try and assist as the family makes efforts for his return."

Assistance, however, is not what's needed, not to replace a loving husband and father.

Kacie says one of the reasons why her husband liked being self-employed was because it gave him the opportunity to do all he could for the couple's autistic child.

"He could carry James out of bed in the morning and dress him (sometimes he hits or kicks) and he would carry him to the car and sometimes into the school and he could do that every morning because he was self employed," Kacie said. "We also struggle to get James to eat or drink anything because he does not express those feelings to us or ask. And then he is in diapers full-time and received therapy at Southwest Center to see if they could get him potty trained and they gave up after six months. He has already missed three days of school because I cannot force him and carry him to the car, etc. I have nerves pinched in my neck, bad enough that most of my left hand has been numb for the last few months. As soon as I lift anything over 30 pounds, the numbness is back in different parts of my body."

 So, let's do the math here.

What do we have?

A wife, unable to work and care for her children, including a 7-year-old with autism whom she has a difficult time handling; 10 people who were employed last year in a community reeling from unemployment; a man who tried to do the right thing, provide for his family and not become dependent on a handout; a family separated by thousands of miles of land and bureaucratic red tape; a government that should be ashamed of itself for not injecting humanity into this whole illegal immigration equation.

Augusto Raymundo Jesus is not a criminal. He is a decent, loving human being, caught up in a situation that, while it may be legal in its strictest sense, is certainly not justice, is not humane, is an example of how this struggle between good, decent people of color and the Anglo population in the United States, has gotten out of hand.

Empey told me he is spending some time with Matheson on the road this week. He said he will work with the Congressman to assist the family as best as they can.

But, the only assistance of any substance would be to reunite Jesus with his wife and kids.