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A immigration officer processed deportations for 20 years. Now he fears his own, after his Mexican birth certificate was unearthed.

GrapeApes

GrapeApes

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Oct 25, 2017
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After nearly 20 years of working as an immigration officer for the US Customs and Border Protection agency, Raul Rodriguez knew a lot about deportation – he processed them. What he didn't know was that he would soon fear deportation himself.

When Rodriguez – who has lived in the US for almost 50 years and served with the US Navy for five separate deployments – started the process of helping his brother emigrate from Mexico to the US, he began submitting his own citizenship paperwork along with his brother's to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Then, he got a call from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG): they had found a birth certificate for Rodriguez that showed he was born in Mexico, KRGV News reports.

Rodriguez said had never seen the birth certificate before, but once the OIG began a criminal investigation into whether his brother's immigration application had been falsified on Rodriguez's part, his father admitted that he actually had been born in Mexico.
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The OIG cleared Rodriguez at the end of the investigation, since he had no idea he wasn't actually a US citizen. But he was fired from his job, and says he and his family have struggled financially since. His wife also works processing immigration applications, and Rodriguez said he has had to refinance his home.

In addition, he said he looks over his shoulder during his day-to-day life, because his residency application was stalled. Rodriguez's lawyer says USCIS is holding him to an outdated standard concerning the falsification of information (what Rodriguez believed to be his real US birth certificate) on his brother's immigration application.
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Siggy-P

Siggy-P

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Mar 18, 2018
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Must be terrible to serve your country in the Military and have it be the only place you've ever known for your entire existance, then one day it's just taken away from you for the most meaningless unfair and pointless reason through no fault of your own. Your entire life and everything you've know. Ripped away purely out of spite and evil.

What kind of heartless self rightous monster would do that? 🤔
 
Fisty

Fisty

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Oct 25, 2017
20,202
Sorry, but he was in the Navy and a US Gov employee but didnt know he was born in Mexico? Yeah I'm not so sure
 

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JealousKenny

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LewieP said:
first line of the quote in the op

"After nearly 20 years of working as an immigration officer for the US Customs and Border Protection agency"
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Someone has to process immigration paperwork, perform work for customs, and enforce deportation laws. Do people here think that nobody should perform those tasks? It didn't say he was front line ICE kicking down people's doors and dragging them out, Jesus.

I don't see why people are villainizing this guy. He had the job before ICE was even a thing.
 

Deleted member 7130

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JealousKenny said:
Someone has to process immigration paperwork, perform work for customs, and enforce deportation laws. Do people here think that nobody should perform those tasks? It didn't say he was front line ICE kicking down people's doors and dragging them out, Jesus.

I don't see why people are villainizing this guy. He had the job before ICE was even a thing.
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Immigration raids were a thing long before ICE. Businesses in America used them as punishment and suppression against migrant workers organizing. They still do. It's a terrorizing tactic.
 
Skyejack

Skyejack

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Trying to make this guy look like a villain is why it's really hard to take a lot of you seriously. He isn't a villain. He's a clerk.
 
Nooblet

Nooblet

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Oct 25, 2017
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How does one NOT know whether they are a US citizen or not and still serve in the military, work in the immigration department, and live in the country for 50 years? You'd think at some point you'd run into something that'd require you to have proof of US citizenship, if they didn't then that's a failure on US government's side not the person. Like in the UK you can't work without a National Insurance number, and when you apply for a National Insurance number you have to use a passport or driver's license, both of which clearly label the citizenship.

Also to all of you saying karma. He was just the dude on the desk, he wasn't making the decisions to deport someone.
 
nded

nded

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Nov 14, 2017
10,557
Fisty said:
Sorry, but he was in the Navy and a US Gov employee but didnt know he was born in Mexico? Yeah I'm not so sure
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My brother is in the Navy and from a what I can tell they're terrible at keeping track of paperwork. It's a carnival of last minute submissions, constantly shifting departments and processes and people just kind of ignoring things and hoping it works out in the end.
 
DrewFu

DrewFu

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nded said:
My brother is in the Navy and from a what I can tell they're terrible at keeping track of paperwork. It's a carnival of last minute submissions and people just kind of ignoring things and hoping it works out in the end.
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That isn't the point. For at least one of these government jobs, one would think you would need to provide a birth certificate - and one would assume that the person would have then SEEN their own certificate.
 
Surakian

Surakian

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Oct 27, 2017
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Nooblet said:
How does one NOT know whether they are a US citizen or not and still serve in the military, work in the immigration department, and live in the country for 50 years? You'd think at some point you'd run into something that'd require you to have proof of US citizenship, if they didn't then that's a failure on US government's side not the person. Like in the UK you can't work without a National Insurance number, and when you apply for a National Insurance number you have to use a passport or driver's license, both of which clearly label the citizenship.

Also to all of you saying karma. He was just the dude on the desk, he wasn't making the decisions to deport someone.
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He wasn't making the decisions but he was still a part of a system that hurt real people trying to survive in this awful world. He chose his job, one that actively works against minorities and now he's seeing exactly how the system fails people like him.
 
Nooblet

Nooblet

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Oct 25, 2017
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Surakian said:
He wasn't making the decisions but he was still a part of a system that hurt real people trying to survive in this awful world. He chose his job, one that actively works against minorities and now he's seeing exactly how the system fails people like him.
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So who's going to work in the immigration department then? Who's going to look at the visa applications that people apply for? Or should there be no immigration department at all? Ideally everyone on earth would be free to go and liver wherever they want to but it doesn't work that way. I'm an immigrant myself and I've been in situations where I've had to report myself in every 3 weeks for a brief period of time as well.

It's just a job, if you want to blame someone blame the people who elected the government that choose to implement it. The people who've never had to deal with immigration and visas in US.
 
LewieP

LewieP

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Oct 26, 2017
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User Banned (5 days): Inflammatory comment and prior infractions
JealousKenny said:
Someone has to process immigration paperwork, perform work for customs, and enforce deportation laws. Do people here think that nobody should perform those tasks? It didn't say he was front line ICE kicking down people's doors and dragging them out, Jesus.

I don't see why people are villainizing this guy. He had the job before ICE was even a thing.
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"I was just following orders" says the Auschwitz guard.
 
Surakian

Surakian

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Oct 27, 2017
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Nooblet said:
So who's going to work in the immigration department then?
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Whoever wants to, but deportation needs an overhaul and nobody should be working that job until it is fixed. I've known too many friends whose families were frightened about being deported over trivial things or being deported while in the process of becoming a citizen. The system has been broken long before immigration became a focal point in the news thanks to ICE.
 
nded

nded

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Nov 14, 2017
10,557
DrewFu said:
That isn't the point. For at least one of these government jobs, one would think you would need to provide a birth certificate - and one would assume that the person would have then SEEN their own certificate.
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He has a U.S. birth certificate. The discovery of the Mexican birth certificate is what threw his citizenship into question.
 
Speevy

Speevy

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Oct 26, 2017
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It's important that at least some people are allowed to develop empathy without being thrown into a pile of those you despise.
 
Osan912

Osan912

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Sep 22, 2018
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People who are incredulous as to why people are pissed at a guy like this speaking as a chicano is that fuckers like these are themselves one or two generations removed from feeling the same fear. It's different when Whitey is working the jobs trying to round us up and shit but when it's our own it's like wtf bro? I have absolutely no love for people who pull up the ladder behind them and say fuck you got mine.
 
Surakian

Surakian

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Oct 27, 2017
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Televator said:
It wasn't meant to. Only to stop people from diminishing his role that was necessary to the deportation of countless people just looking for a better chance, without pushback.
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Exactly. Just because he processed the paperwork and wasn't involved in the decision of people being deported, he was still party to a system that wrongfully deports people every day. He chose this job. He went to it everyday for 20 years knowing full well what would happen to some of those people who didn't deserve being deported. Now he's learned the truth of his own birth and has lost his job despite 20 years of service and is going through this very same ordeal.

The system he once helped to maintain has now turned on him. It's fair for people to criticize his role in this regardless of where he was in the chain of command.

It would be different if the immigration process wasn't so completely messed up in its current form. It would even be different if every single person that was deported was rightfully deported. Many people get deported without being given a chance to become citizens, or are deported on technicalities, some people like this man have been living in the US for their whole lives and have paid their taxes or worked in service of the country and were deported.

What empathy I have for this man is strictly focused on the fact that he did not know the truth and he is close to losing everything, but at the same time it is karmic. He worked a job that hurt innocent people and now he is in their shoes.
 
Double 0

Double 0

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Nov 5, 2017
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I totally get the anger toward this guy.

At least a black cop can make an attempt to seem like they are bettering their community. A weak one, but still.

This dude's job helps ruin lives, no matter what rung he's at. That's the main function: kick people out, making their lives worse.

Not fun to see things from the other side of the barrel.
 

Deleted member 4413

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The hot takes in this thread are something else. Era is so far deep in a bubble, more so than we ever were at the old place.
 
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