As Trump crackdown continues, more undocumented immigrants are choosing to 'self-deport'

Weeks after her husband was deported, Rojina Akter left her part-time job, packed some of her belongings at her apartment in Elizabeth, and along with her three children boarded a plane and left New Jersey to join him.

The family will start anew in Bangladesh, a country Akter and her husband, Amenul Hoque, left more than 15 years ago and is foreign to their children, one of whom is a U.S. citizen.

They don’t know when, or whether, they will return to the United States.

"The move definitely wasn't easy at all,'' Evana Akter, 20, wrote in a Facebook message this week to The Record and NorthJersey.com. "We all left a piece of us there."

More and more undocumented immigrants are weighing whether to leave the United States voluntarily rather than face detention or deportation as the administration of President Donald Trump continues to take a hard line on illegal immigration.

It’s not known how many immigrants living in the country illegally have left the United States on their own in the last year, because they feared being deported or because they wanted to join a loved one — often the family's main provider — who had been sent home. However, those who study migration patterns and work with the undocumented immigrant population in New Jersey say they know of people who are planning to depart, or who have already left.

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Muzaffer Chishti, the director of the Migration Policy Institute office at New York University School of Law, said he has seen a growing trend of Mexicans returning home, and that Trump’s immigration enforcement policies would likely prompt more people to leave for other countries as well.

“People are making plans to leave, people are making plans to sell their house, people are making plans — if eventually if we leave our children behind, who should get their guardianship, what should happen to their school, to their bank accounts?’’ he said. “This type of practical planning is clearly happening in communities all across the country, and certainly more among Mexicans."

Darren Maloney, director of legal services for Catholic Family and Community Services in Paterson, said he has a client whose father was debating whether to return to Peru after living in the United States for more than 20 years.

“He doesn’t want to be plucked up, detained or sent back,’’ Maloney said. “There is anecdotal evidence that Trump’s policies are having the intended effects, but at what cost? It certainly isn’t very American, and it certainly doesn’t hold up to Christian principles the way they are treating people.”

Tracking the number of people who leave on their own, like Rojina Akter and her family, is nearly impossible, Chishti said.

“We wish we had numbers," he said. "I don’t even know, even if we wanted to, how we would gather them."

For supporters of Trump's hard-line approach to immigration policy, such self-deportations are welcome. Dave Ray, communications director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington-based organization that favors restricting immigration, said that if the government creates an uncomfortable environment for immigrants who are living in the country illegally, it will give them the incentive to go back to their native countries, saving taxpayers money while also keeping families together.

“Illegal immigrants … are rational individuals who make rational decisions, and they came here because they thought they could get away with it,’’ Ray said. “Once they realize they can’t, they’ll accept the fact that they are wasting their time and they’ll return home. That’s better for them, and it’s better for us.”

Pursuing a better life

Akter and Hoque came to the United States in 2004 with their daughter, now 20, and son, Emon Faiman, now 15, after living for a couple of years in Botswana. They overstayed their tourist visa and applied for asylum within a year, citing politically motivated violence at home, but their application was rejected. After exhausting their appeals, they were issued a deportation order in 2007.

After they applied for asylum, they received work authorization and Social Security numbers. Hoque found work at restaurants, where he learned to make fried chicken and pizza. Within a few years, Akter had given birth to the couple's third child, their younger son, Arik, now 11 and a U.S. citizen. She said they were happy to see their children thrive in school.

In 2010, Akter said her husband was detained by immigration officials and spent 11 months at the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility. At the same time, she was placed under supervision and fitted with an ankle monitor, she said.

In October 2011, Hoque was released, his daughter said, and Akter’s bracelet was removed a few months later — all with no explanation.

ICE granted Hoque and Akter stays of removal several times at routine check-ins, which Akter said they always attended. Until 2014, they met with immigration authorities every six months. From 2014 to 2016, they were summoned only once a year. Last year, they were asked to check in at three- and six-month intervals. After each check-in with ICE, Akter and Hoque were given a new date to return and were able to renew their work permits.

At their November check-in, though, immigration officers told the couple to return in February, an unusually short turnaround that alarmed the family. On Jan. 17, immigration officers knocked on the family’s fourth-floor apartment door and asked for Hoque. A few hours later, Hoque called his family and told them he had been detained. He was deported on Feb. 12.

Akter checked in with immigration officials in Newark two days later, and she was told to return in two months. By then, though, the family was considering returning to Bangladesh, Evana and her mother said at the time.

Fearing ICE

Evana Akter said her family ultimately decided to leave because they were afraid Rojina Akter would be taken away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

"There is no telling with them, as they had picked up my father out of the blue,'' Akter wrote. "At my mom's previous check-in, she was asked to return again on April 16 with her passport once again. We feared this time they [had] intentions on detaining her as well when she goes in next time with her passport."

She said her father described the harsh conditions under which he was flown back to Bangladesh.

"[He] and the rest of the immigrants on the charter flight were cuffed around the wrists, ankles and waist, the entire 20-plus-hour flight, as if they were dangerous, convicted criminals,'' she wrote. "Along with him were also 3-4 females in the same conditions. When my father witnessed that he broke because he feared my mom may be in the same position soon."

She said her father told them they must join him.

"We also didn't inform anyone in fear that word might get out to ICE and they may detain her,'' she wrote. "We decided that we would rather leave the country together than wait around [and] risk my mom's freedom."

By returning to Bangladesh, Evana, who was pursuing a nursing degree at Union County College, lost her two-year work permit and protection from deportation under an Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

"Our biggest concern now is how my siblings and I will continue our education in this country that was completely foreign to us,'' she wrote.

Tougher immigration enforcement

After Trump took office, having pledged to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, he signed an executive order that set new priorities for who can be detained and deported by immigration officials.

The Obama administration had prioritized for arrest and removal undocumented immigrants who had been convicted of a crime or who posed a danger to public safety. Trump’s executive order rescinded those guidelines and ordered immigration officers not only to go after criminals, but also those who have been merely charged with a criminal offense, those who have engaged in fraud or abused any program related to receiving public benefits, and those subject to a final order of removal.

Chishti, from the Migration Policy Institute, said that under Obama those with final orders of removal were able to check in regularly with immigration officials and were allowed to continue to live in the United States. But that has changed significantly under Trump, and he said it could lead to more voluntary departures as more people are detained at check-ins.

“Once that becomes more and more known among people who have been used to check-ins, they will not go to check-ins and they will choose to self-deport,’’ he said.

He added that there are about 960,000 outstanding final orders of removal, and immigrants with such orders, who usually have already exhausted their legal options, are an easier target for enforcement.

“Normally when you pick up some people you have to take them to an immigration judge," he said. "But in this case, you don’t, so they can be removed very quickly and that is what is happening."

More vigorous enforcement

In New Jersey, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations in Newark deported 2,536 people in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2017, which represents a 37 percent increase from the 1,852 people who were deported the previous year. From Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2017, ICE removed 56,710 people nationwide, 660 of them by the office in Newark, according to figures provided by the agency.

ICE officers also arrested 3,189 immigrants in the 2017 fiscal year, an increase of nearly 40 percent from the 2,247 people arrested the previous year.

Some people are able to depart voluntarily with a judge's consent. Called voluntary departure, it allows undocumented immigrants who are facing removal to leave the country on their own and not have it listed as a deportation. Emilio K. Dabul, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark, said he did not have figures for how many voluntary departures have been granted, but he noted that such cases are rare.

When an undocumented immigrant is not detained but, like Akter, remains under a final order of removal and purchases a plane ticket and departs on her own, that departure is still considered a deportation, Dabul said. Anyone who is deported is barred from entering the United States for a period of time that can range from five to 20 years, depending on the circumstances of their immigration case and what led to their deportation.

Email: alvarado@northjersey.com