A Kona, Hawaii, coffee farmer has been deported back to Mexico 28 years after being brought to the U.S.
Andres Magana Ortiz left his wife and three children Friday to voluntarily return to Mexico after his petition to the Department of Homeland Security for legal status was rejected.
Ortiz, 43, was smuggled into the country when he was 15 because his mother was in the U.S., NBC reported. He has no family left in Mexico.
Ortiz is a respected member of his community and owns a coffee farm in the Kona region of Hawaii.
The Hawaiian congressional delegation also requested Ortiz be allowed to stay in the U.S., and San Francisco Appeals Court Judge Stephen Reinhardt called the decision to deport Ortiz “inhumane,” NBC reported, but said he did not have the authority to grant his request to delay or block the deportation order.
President Donald Trump has claimed that his immigration policies would target the "bad hombres", but, Reinhardt said, “The government decision in the immigration case shows that even the ‘good hombres’ are not safe,” NBC reported.
Ortiz’s adult daughter Ledesma, who is a U.S. citizen, can apply for an immigrant visa for her father once she turns 21 in August, but a deportation sometimes prevents immigrants from re-entering the U.S. for up to 10 years, BuzzFeed reported.
Reinhardt called the deportation “contrary to the values of the country and its legal system,” The Washington Post reported, and added, “The government forces us to participate in ripping apart a family.”
Although some on Twitter felt sympathetic, they wondered why the Kona coffee farmer hadn’t made more effort over 28 years to gain legal status.
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