Immigrant Who Never Got 2005 Court Date Due To Error Fears Deportation

A Michigan man who came to the United States from El Salvador 14 years ago without a visa, but never had an immigration hearing because of a court error, was picked up last week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and may be deported back to his increasingly violent homeland. Jose Ricardo Valle Rodriguez plans to be in court as soon as it opens Tuesday — the most common day of the week for deportations — in an eleventh hour attempt to keep his family intact.

He and his wife, Karina Valle, were stopped in Ypsilanti Wednesday by ICE agents as they ran an errand with their 2-year-old son in the back of their vehicle. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Detroit Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, follow us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Rodriguez, 31, contacted a federal immigration court in 2005 to apply for residency, but the court entered his ZIP code wrong, his lawyer, immigration attorney Brad Thomson told Michigan Radio. When he failed to appear at his hearing, a deportation order was filed by the court, but he wasn’t picked up until Wednesday, Thomson said.

Thomson obtained documents showing the hearing notice as undeliverable through the Freedom of Information Act. Thomson said he won a similar case involving an incorrectly entered ZIP code, and he’s optimistic he will prevail in Rodriguez’s case. He is currently in federal detention in Battle Creek.

He expects to receive an automatic stay of removal, but his family is fearful he will have to return to El Salvador, where gang violence has erupted and some members of his family have been murdered.

“His parents have sent a letter saying they can’t receive him, because they’re scared for his life,” Karina said. “They can torture and kill him. They can torture his family. My father was already murdered by gangs [in El Salvador]. Cousins of my mother have been kidnapped and killed. We’re really close to the violence. That’s my biggest fear, of him going and being killed.”

(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images News/Getty Images)