THE IMMIGRATION CORNER
- A sharper perspective with Randy Depoo
Kaieteur News
March 25, 2007
We are pleased to introduce a new weekly column, THE IMMIGRATION CORNER, by renowned U.S. immigration attorney and former American diplomat Randy Depoo.
Mr. Depoo practices immigration law in the Unites States and throughout the Caribbean region. He has offices in the United States, Trinidad and Guyana.
A native of Guyana Mr. Depoo migrated to the United States in 1974. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force at the tail end of the Vietnam war and instantly became an American citizen. He obtained a bachelors degree in political science and a Juris Doctor degree from Rutgers University School of Law in New Jersey with a specialization in international law. He also earned a Legal Education Certificate from the Hugh Wooding School of Law in Trinidad in 1997. He is admitted to practice law in New Jersey, before the U.S. Federal courts, and in Trinidad and Guyana.
After graduating from law school in 1983 Mr. Depoo practiced law in New Jersey as a criminal defense attorney. In 1986 he joined the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Service officer with a specialization in consular affairs. As a consular officer he was posted to the Philippines, Venezuela and Canada. He was also posted to the Operations Center at State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research in Washington, D.C. , where he won the Dennis Keogh Award as the Watch Officer of the year. In 1995, he went to Trinidad as the Chief of the Political Section at the American Embassy.
Depoo was personally involved in negotiating a new Extradition Treaty, a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, and a Maritime Counter-drug Agreement with a Shiprider Provision in record time. All three were signed by U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Prime Minister Basdeo Panday in 1996. He also was on the team that negotiated the agenda items for President Clinton's historic Bridgetown Summit in June 1997.
Depoo's diplomatic career was studded with awards at every single posting. He won five U.S State Department Meritorious Honor Awards, the U.S. State Department Keogh Intelligence Watch Officer of the Year. In addition he won an Award by the Hindu Temple Society, Toronto, Ontario, one by the Western Police District, Manila, Philippines , and another by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
In 1999 Depoo decided to resign from the U.S. State Department and to assist the Government of Trinidad and Tobago to improve its capability to fight drug trafficking and money laundering. He assumed a position as consultant to the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs to establish an elite agency responsible for conducting sensitive narco-trafficking and money laundering investigations.
After his work with the Trinidad government he established his own law firm in Trinidad, Gray Street Chambers in Trinidad, which has four attorneys, and Depoo and Associates in Guyana. Depoo has specialized in immigration law and has written extensively in the area. He will be sharing his expertise with us every Sunday in this column. He has a particular interest in addressing complaints of abuse at any Embassy.
We encourage our readers to send questions and comments to Mr. Depoo directly by fax in Guyana at 227-5109, in Trinidad at 868-628-9606, or by email at rdepoo@depoolaw.com.
FINGERPRINTS DO LIE
The U.S. government last began fingerprinting all non-immigrant visa applicants between the ages of 14 and 79. Visitors to the United States are now also being fingerprinted. Within two to three years the immigration computer system will contain about 50 million fingerprints. This compares with the 44 million currently being held by the F.B.I.
The immigration fingerprints will be used to determine if someone is admissible to the United States. What is the potential for mistaken identification and possible detention or deportation?
Until recently law enforcement authorities have maintained that fingerprint identification is 100 percent accurate. They say it has been used for over a hundred years with hardly any problems. Defense attorneys have pointed out that there has not been a single study of crime-scene fingerprint matching. Further, there are no established standards for what constitutes a match, and examiners do disagree from time to time.
The most publicized case of a mistaken match involves Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield. Last year three top F.B.I. experts matched Mayfield's fingerprint with a partial print found on a bag containing explosive detonators at the Madrid train bombing.
Mayfield was immediately arrested after the F.B.I. triumphantly declared that the fingerprint match was “absolutely incontrovertible” and a “bingo match.” After holding Mayfield for two weeks the F.B.I. sheepishly admitted that it goofed. The print actually belongs to Ouhmane Daoud, an Algerian.
In another case of a mistaken identity match, Pennsylvania resident Rick Jackson was actually convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
When the police picked up Jackson they told him they found his bloody fingerprints at the scene of his friend's murder. Jackson later said he felt relieved that the police actually had prints because he was certain they could not be his.
Not one but several local fingerprint experts insisted the prints belonged to Jackson. The prosecutor even brought in an outside examiner who also concluded with 100 percent certainty that the prints belonged to Jackson. Two retired F.B.I. examiners hired by the defense, concluded that there was no match. They said “It's not even a close call.”
After a two-week trial the jury found Jackson guilty of first-degree murder. The outraged retired F.B.I. examiners asked the International Association of Identification (IAI) to review the prints. When the IAI reported that the prints did not belong to Jackson the prosecution asked the F.B.I. for an opinion. The F.B.I. revealed that the prosecution experts were wrong and that the prints did not belong to Jackson . After two years behind bars Jackson was released.
Rene Ramon Sanchez, a Dominican native residing in New York City, also found out that prints do lie. In 1995 Sanchez was pulled over and charged with drunk driving. When the police fingerprinted Sanchez, then 33, they mistakenly placed the prints on a card that belonged to Leo Rosario, a 21-year-old man who was arrested the night before for drug trafficking.
The drunk driving charges were eventually dismissed and Sanchez returned to his life of repairing cars and singing meringue part-time in the Bronx. The fingerprint cards resided peacefully in a file in Albany until August 1998, when Sanchez was again arrested for drunk driving.
After being jailed for four days, Sanchez was taken before Justice Bonnie Wittner of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan, where the clerk announced “Calendar No. 45, Leo Rosario.” By this time Rosario had pled guilty, was put on probation, violated probation, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. The prints taken at the time of Sanchez's arrest matched those on file for Rosario.
An exasperated Sanchez insisted that he was not Rosario, and though an interpreter, suggested that the police take his prints again. The new set of prints only confirmed that he was Rosario. Eventually a probation officer checked a mug shot of Rosario and informed the Judge that it did not match the man in court. Sanchez was released.
A year later Sanchez discovered that the problem did not go away. During a traffic stop for a defective taillight he was taken into custody and held for several hours. Apparently, in the State's computer system Leo Rosario became an alias for Rene Ramon Sanchez. Sanchez was eventually released when his true identity was ascertained.
On October 11, 2000 Sanchez was again arrested, this time at Kennedy International Airport upon his return from the Dominican Republic. The arresting officer explained that there was an arrest warrant for him under the name Leo Rosario.
The next day Sanchez was taken before Justice Wittner, the same Judge he appeared before two years earlier. The Judge did not recognize him and refused to listen to him until he appeared with a lawyer. The following day the Immigration and Naturalization Service asked that Mr. Rosario be held for deportation proceedings. The Judge decided to end Rosario's probation and turn him over to the immigration service to face deportation.
A stunned Sanchez asked “What case?” He insisted that he had no immigration problems. Sanchez pleaded “Please, permit me to speak. Please. Please. Miss.” The Judge replied “I can't help you, sir.”
A month after being taken into custody Sanchez was taken before Immigration Judge Alan Page, who explained that he was subject to deportation for his drug trafficking conviction. Page ordered that a new set of prints be taken, which established that Sanchez and Rosario “are one and the same.”
Judge Page said: “Nobody has ever been able to prove that there are two people out there with the same exact set of prints. And they were using fingerprinting, I think, for approximately the last 100 years, or more. He's Leo Rosario. There's no other conclusion I can reach.”
Eventually Sanchez's attorney obtained a transcript of the 1998 hearing before Justice Wittner which established that Sanchez and Rosario are different persons. Sanchez was released after the immigration service went to the police to look at Rosario's photo. Sanchez spent two months in jail waiting for the matter to be resolved. His lawyers are suing the state of New York.
Sanchez is lucky that the error was discovered prior to his deportation. Had he been deported he would have no recourse to U.S. courts.