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
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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)
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Photo Essay Immigration Rallies Demonstrators demand path to citizenship for estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.
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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.
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See all 131 Comments1) want happened to the 1986 amnesty law. Didn't see qualify under that?
2) this is why you get a lawyer for any thing legal
as for any others:
If you live in one of these areas, call AND email your Senator. They are tallying calls and emails for and against--help yours to make the right choice (which ever side that may be to you):
Here are six Senators who are wavering on the cloture vote:
Sam Brownback (R, KS) at (785) 233-2503 and (202) 224-6521
Richard Burr (R, NC) at (336) 631-5125 and (202) 224-3154
Thad Cochran (R, MS) at (601) 965-4459 and (202) 224-5054
Norm Coleman (R, MN) at (651) 645-0320 and (202) 224-5641
John Ensign (R, NV) at (702) 388-6605 and (202) 224-6244
Jim Webb (D, VA) at (804) 771-2221 and (202) 224-4024
Posted by Klingon69 at 11:25 AM : Jun 26, 2007
I don't think most of us hate illegal immigrants either--we just hate the games being played with our country, our sovereignty, and our laws. Suspending, ignoring and/or bargaining with them whenever a certain elite group wants to bend or break the laws.
As for why many are so angry with illegal immigrants, this is simple: Americans hate the idea of people cheating. We hate even more the idea that the cheaters think they have a right to cheat and thumb their noses at our laws and at us. And we really, really hate the fact that for every cheating illegal immigrant; there was a legitimate one in line that got cut in front of.
That cheating thing--will haunt this group forever (and also any line jumpers who come later--because of course, this will keep happening). Nobody likes a cheater--to even be a cheater--one also has to be a liar and a schemer (lie about identity, residency, etc--scheme to have a baby here, marry someone here, get fake papers).
So really, the question is not "when did Americans start hating immigrants?" it really is "When did Americans start hating liars and cheaters?"
We always did--we just never had 12 to 20 million of them to direct our anger on, and focus the ire at one time.
Posted by GingerSnapp1 at 09:36 PM : Jun 24, 2007
Not immigrants, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
I do not know why so many of you hate immigrants
for I am one too.Personally though I am pretty sure that when all is said and done,she will be allow to stay here.
I support you Mrs.Meyer
Posted by noaanhc at 10:14 PM : Jun 24, 2007
Once again, we do not hate immigrants (that are legal), we do not want the illegal kind.
Posted by nottellin1 at 09:07 PM : Jun 25, 2007
LOL. Don't let your long hereditary diary fool you--this gives you no rights to America, we have this thing about eventually returning land to the rightful owners and making the inhabitants just suck it up. Our day is coming.
(can trace part of my lineage back to the early 1700s in America)
After all, we insisted that Palestine belonged to the Jews, who had biblical precedence of thousands of years before--and we are killing off the group who had been living there for over 1 thousand years (Palestinian descendants).
So if we can push for such a transition when the tenure is at least a thousand years---what chance do we have in America, when our sojourn has been less than 500 and our existence as a country is less than 300? Native Americans were here over 25,000 years before us--that even trumps the tenancy of the Jews. LOL
Oh yeah--I MAY get to stay since my great grandmother was a Cherokee--but then again--I have been so diluted with other stuff--maybe I am too "contaminated" to stay also. lmao.
Descendants from the Mayflower---who cares? it just means your ancestors were one of the first invaders from England--even the ancestry of most Hispanics trumps ours--they having arrived and settled in America at least 200 YEARS before any Englishman, Irishman, Scots--ever did.
Posted by Jolsonbear at 07:29 PM : Jun 24, 2007
Well, since I do have Native American blood in my lineage, I guess I'm legal then.
This is beaurocracy gone crazy, its insane for anyone to believe that the INF is actually doing "its job" when we have millions of illegals in this country.
When this woman married and had children, she became a citizen. At least she didnt marry only to become one.
The ones that we dont need are the illegals on the streets, no jobs, no life, a part of the drug culture importing death and poison. They sell the stuff to our kids so they can send money home. Not just COCAIN, but Heroin as well. They also need to secure the border against terrorists. This is such an issue, but the national priority is being ignored while they play patsy in Congress.
Posted by nottellin1 at 11:06 PM : Jun 25, 2007
I like the word "eventually". Sounds like they were
eventually "convinced".
Posted by nottellin1 at 09:07 PM : Jun 25, 2007"
So be glad the Indians welcomed you in their country. Or didn't they have the choice, maybe ?
Posted by MichelleM99 at 09:35 PM : Jun 25, 2007
I am sorry for your early life experience, that must have been difficult for you. My previous post was not intended to sound self righteous in any way, just a fact. That being said, at the time the Indians eventually welcomed the first settlers, there was considered to be enough land for everyone. Except of course the British government that the colonists were fleeing from. Sadly, this is not true today, land is at a premium and the US already has enough problems without importing them from other countries. Also, I am sorry for the women in this story, but US law is US law. I hope for her sake that the judge will take into account the fact that she was misled by her parents and allow her to retain legal resident status with no voting rights.
The bigger question is, of course, how many others are voting unlawfully and how is that effecting cities like LA with Major Viarigossa.
"... too ridiculous to happen ..."
Posted by timetrips1 at 03:24 PM : Jun 25, 2007
In case anyone wants to ask me this question. I have a certified birth cert that shows exactly where I was born. My US passport confirms it.
Posted by gunnerv1 at 03:34 PM : Jun 25, 2007
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Don't be so sure that common sense and decency will prevail. We're in a post-9/11 world where no xenophobic paranoid injustice is too ridiculous not to happen.
Remember that when Mrs. Meyer's parents left Castro's Cuba in the 1960's, the American populace wasn't terrified of foreigners, and in fact welcomed immigrants from Communist countries. It was before the days of the authorities going around checking everybody's papers, looking for enemies and lawbreakers. Small wonder that her parents would believe what somehow their little toddler was a citizen.
But no more. The government is moving towards checking everybody's legal status and deporting anybody they can.
She should NOT be deported.
We'd be better off deporting our dictator.
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