LOS ANGELES, Calif., June 24, 2007
Former Councilwoman Faces Deportation
Emigrated From Cuba At Age 1, Calif. Woman Learns True Residency Status Means Her Vote Was Illegal
-
Photo
Zoila Meyer, photographed with her son Peter on June 20, 2007. Meyer's parents brought her from Cuba when she was 1 year old and always told her she was a U.S. citizen. But after winning election to the City Council of Adelanto, Calif., it was discovered she was only a legal resident, and faces deportation for having voted. (AP / Victor Valley Daily Press)
-
Photo Essay
Immigration Rallies
Demonstrators demand path to citizenship for estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.
-
News Tools
Immigration Reform Plan
President Bush lays out his vision for comprehensive immigration reform.
Her parents brought her with them from Cuba when she was 1 year old and always told her she was a U.S. citizen. She even won election to the City Council of Adelanto, a town of about 23,000 in Southern California's high desert.
But on Tuesday, immigration officers put the 40-year-old mother of four in handcuffs and she is facing deportation for illegally voting.
"To be honest with you, I'm scared. How can they just pluck me out of my family, my kids?" Meyer said in a telephone interview on Friday.
"If they can do this to me, they can do it to anybody," she said.
After Meyer was elected to the council in Adelanto in 2004, someone told officials that she was born in Cuba, prompting an investigation.
Eventually, "the police came to me and said, 'Zoila, you're not a citizen. You're a legal resident but you're not a citizen,"' said Meyer, who now lives in the San Bernardino County desert town of Apple Valley, near Adelanto.
She resigned after 10 weeks in office in Adelanto, a town of about 23,000.
Meyer, whose story was first reported in the Victorville Daily Press, applied to become a naturalized citizen and continued with her life: raising her children and attending two local colleges to earn degrees toward her goal of working in the justice system as a forensic nurse.
However, because she was not a citizen, Meyer faced a felony charge of illegally voting in the 2004 election.
In April 2006, she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of fraudulent voting and was placed on probation, fined and ordered to pay restitution.
What Meyer didn't realize is that fraudulently voting is a deportable offense.
On June 18, Meyer said, immigration officials showed up at her home and told her to appear at their San Bernardino office.
Her husband drove her to the office on Tuesday, "and they handcuffed me," Meyer said. "They put me in jail and they frisked me and processed me."
"I said, 'You're doing this because I voted?'"
The case is unusual but immigration officials were just doing their job when they arrested Meyer, said Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"People are arrested on immigration charges from all walks of life," she said. "She can plead her case before an immigration judge, if she feels that she has reason to seek release for removal. ... Everybody has due process when they're arrested."
Meyer was released pending a July 18 appearance before an immigration judge who will determine whether she will be deported to Canada, the last point of entry into the U.S. recorded in her immigration record.
Meyer said she and her parents had visited Canada and she had gone many times to Mexico without anyone ever asking her to prove her citizenship.
Meyer said she does not support illegal immigration but she thinks immigration procedures should be changed to prevent misunderstandings.
"It makes me feel like we're all just numbers," she said of her case. "I see people writing 'This is my country.' It really isn't. It belongs to the government and they decide who stays and who goes.
"You think you're free; you're really not."
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Video and Galleries from U.S.
-
Video
H1N1: A Looming Threat?
-
Video
Obama Wraps Up G8 Summit
-
Video
A Comeback For GM?
- 1
- 2
- 3
- next
See all 131 CommentsHere we are - allowing all kinds of Mexican and Columbian gang members into this country, and women dropping "anchor babies" into our hospitals, and the dummies at INS-ICE are going after this woman - who truly didn't know, learned English and respected our laws.
Bush and his buddies Kennedy, Pelosi, Reid, McLame and Kyl need to read this, and know why so many of us are fed up.
Keep in the good folks who truly want to learn English, are raising this kids right, and want to be Americans - and dammit kick the rest out.
The BoyBlunder never ceases to amaze me at his ability to create scenarios in a timely fashion to suit his own selfish legislation.
Amazing... simply amazing...
Did this woman, not once, ask where her citizenship papers were? How about a birth certificate? How about a green card?
I knowest not from whence I come therefore I am innocent.
What they don't understand is, we are sick of the government constantly thinking they can outsmart us!
Everyone in every state---keep watch on your elected officials, and those that don't vote in the best interest of AMERICANS---get them out of office!!!
Well it ain't working!
Illegal by any other name is still ILLEGAL!
All this rhetoric about the immigration bill---all that is is quazi slavery--these illegals work for far less than Americans do,and not just picking grapes---they have been hired to do skilled labor at low wages to boost corporate greed.
Wake up America before we all have to learn spanish!
Posted by ncolsens at 03:58 PM : Jun 24, 2007
Resident aliens receive SSN's, FYI.
This lady knew she was illegal, but like all of them, she expects the benevolent ploliticians to bail her out. Well, this is the consequence of illegal entry into our country. No one wants to hear about how mad you are. The facts appear to be that she is illegal and that is the end of the story. It's no different than an escaped criminal being discovered after years of undetection. He would go back to jail because of the law breaking. I say deport all illegals now. Whatever the cost, it is worth every penny.
A social security number is issued by the Social Security Administration and can only be obtained by US citizens or non-resident alien individuals who have been issued proper working visas such as an H1-B, F-1 or J-1.
So if she did have one, she had to know she was illegally in the U.S.
Or.....mom and dad obtained one illegally
In any case send her packing, and the kids
Posted by drivelphobe at 04:44 PM : Jun 24, 2007
Ahh, absolutism. It's as if the world were black and white - or in this case brown and white, since we all know "illegal immigrant" is just doublespeak for "Mexican", Fascist America's fallback scapegoat (right after al-Qaeda and Clinton).
I think America would be far better off putting all citizens through psych examinations and sending all judgmental Xenophobes to spend a couple years in a third world country to get some much-needed perspective.
Hello;
Everyone wants to come and live here in the greatest country in the world..... The United States of North America.... and I can hardly blame them.
I'm from Manila, The Philippine Islands, and after almost forty-eight years.... I WOULDN'T THINK of living ANYWHERE ELSE!!!
My question is this: What would happen to her case.... IF the U.S. Congress PASSED the Immigration Reform Act... that President Bush is so agreeeable to?
Imagine... OVER 12,000,000. Illegal Immigrants.... all of a sudden... are considered CITIZENS.... by one swift stroke of the Pen? All of a sudden... we REWARD... these LAWBREAKERS... with Citizenship?
I guess.. like the saying goes....."life is NOT an even playing field."
Where would SHE stand then?
Just an opinion.
rjm
Illegal is illegal, it is not double-talk for Mexican. It just happens that the overwhelming number of illegals are Mexican, so it easy for yokels like you to use the racism tag. However, I don't care where they are from, just deport all of them. We more than welcome honest, law-abiding, respectfull applicants for US citizenship. We need all we can get, not these invading criminals who sneak in with their hands out for freebies. Large numberes are criminals in their own country and some are probably terorists. The American citizenry are fed up with this illegal business and it is going to come to and end soon. They have no rights here and we don't want them. The borders need to be secured by the military.
I'll think of you the next time I read the engraving "give me your tired, your poor, your hungry" on Staten Island.
We are tired of receiving every country's tired, hungry, and poor...We already have enough LEGAL US citizens exactly like this and our government doesn't do enough for them...why do we need more?
Enough is enough already!!
Sounds as if she expects to be treated with more care and respect than other illegals ... and allowed to remain here with impunity.
Something or somebody is not right .. and maybe we shall read the correct version one of these day's ... she should be treated like any other illegal alien and follow the laws on the books.
I could understand if she was just a child or still a relatively young person but somewhere along the line she had to become aware that she was not born in the USA which would lead immediately to a concern about her immigration status.
I was born in the USA just a month after my parents arrived here. I've had many occassions to need my birth certificate and thus know that I am a citizen. But if I had seen that I was born in another country I would certainly have wanted to see a copy of my naturalization papers.
2- She knew she didn't have voting rights.
3- Until recently, anyone could get into Canada.
4- She knowingly broke the law.
Ms. Meyer--you broke the law and you knew it-
A thief never likes to see another thief prosper, they say.
When America has the "wet foot dry foot" policy just for the benefit of Cubans, it is obvious that this woman belongs.
And those goons putting this woman in handcuff for a mere vote (because she believed from her parents that she was citizen) is like the nazis claiming that they were only doing their duties when they were gassing and baking humans in Europe.
I just hope that they were trying to make an example of her to illegal aliens; but that is too much to hope for.
Now let's deport Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Ramon Villar or Villaraigosa or whatever he calls himself these days.
Next would be Los Angeles City Attorney Ricardo Delgadillo.
Then Los Angeles County Sheriff Baca.
Let's check the immigration status of all California politicians.
Then let's verify the immigration status of all California voters and deport those who are illegal.
She is a well educated woman, but unfortunately played right into the hands of the very people trying to get the immigration bill passed.
She is not a "typical" illegal and the government is just using her--
Politicians and the media are trying to pit Americans against one another.
We need to stay focused on the issue at hand--
controlling the issue of the illegal aliens that are using the system, refuse to speak, much learn english and come here the right way and support themselves.
Posted by Agnim at 06:25 PM : Jun 24, 2007
I agree. The thieving, murdering, enslaving Hispanics who exterminated the American Natives are now trying to take over the United States, which rescued what was left of the Natives from the Hispanics.
The illegals must be deported now at all costs, which will be a lot less expensive than letting them stay and plunder this country.
The illegals must be deported now at all costs, which will be a lot less expensive than letting them stay and plunder this country.
Posted by cpaide at 06:36 PM : Jun 24, 2007
Agreed. Besides, it just happens to be the LAW.
The LAW has to MEAN something in order for it to work for the benefit of the people. These illegals are nothing but LAWBREAKERS and the last thing we need more of in America is people gaining an amnesty through breaking OUR LAW in bypassing it...
I SINCERELY WELCOME LEGAL IMMIGRANTS TO THE USA
1) Passports were not required for travel between the U.S. and Canada until only THIS YEAR. In my experience, at least until 2000, border officials did not ask for birth certificates (which would have been the alternate form of proof).
2) Green cards issued in the 1960's and 1970's did not have expirations. And I'm not sure that the law in the 1960's required infants to have them. (Remember, this is the era when U.S. passports were actually issued one to a family.)
Ms. Meyer's mistake was not using an immigration attorney--or at least competent counsel--when dealing with the original voting charge. Any attorney with even a minimal knowledge of immigration law knows that you don't allow your client to plea bargain to a felony--any felony--without taking into account the risk that it could lead to deportation.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- next
See all 131 Comments