The voice of hope

Barbadian Cecil Harvey, in the US for 36 years, won a civil suit in New York after being held on Rikers Island jail for 35 days. (Maria Bradshaw)

By Maria Bradshaw | Sun, February 05, 2012 - 12:03 AM

BECAUSE of Barbadian Cecil Harvey, hundreds of legal and illegal immigrants awaiting deportation from the United States are no longer being illegally detained at Rikers Island jail for long periods.

The 60-year-old St Peter man, who was deported to Barbados in 2007, went down in United States history as having won a landmark civil lawsuit against the New York City Department of Corrections for violating his civil rights, by detaining him for more than the required 48 hours on Rikers Island.

He was held for 35 days there, was not allowed to attend the appeal hearing against his deportation and subsequently sent back home.

Back in 2007, he returned to Barbados with just a bit more than the clothes on his back. Two years later he received a cheque for US$145 000 – the money he was awarded from the lawsuit. He was assisted in his lawsuit by a civil rights advocacy group, led by Professor Nancy Morwitz, of the New York University Law School.

Harvey also generously donated US$10 000 of his award to advocacy groups to assist people like himself, who were fighting deportation.

Now the man, who left Barbados when he was 15 years old to join his parents in the United States, is fighting another civil rights battle, this time to get back to the country where he spent most of his life, despite his persona non grata status.

After winning the lawsuit, he was castigated across the United States as an illegal immigrant, with a long criminal rap sheet, who had been handed hard-earned taxpayers’ money.

Naturalized citizen

But Harvey told the SUNDAY SUN he had lived in the United States for 36 years and was a naturalized citizen. He has also been married to his wife, who still lives there, for more than 30 years and they have three daughters and grandchildren who were all born there.

He admitted having a few run-ins with the law – he was arrested in 1997 on a minor offence – but authorities used a previous arrest in 1993 on a fraud charge, to conduct deportation proceedings against him.

“I was one of the first immigrants to be affected by the changes in the immigration law by President [Bill] Clinton in 1996. When I went to the immigration court in Manhattan, the judge asserted that I was deportable, based on the changes in the law.”

Without money to hire an attorney, Harvey studied as a paralegal, becoming familiar with immigration law and undertook an exhausting ten-year battle against the deportation.

In his fight to remain in the United States with his family, he went before several immigration judges as the case was sent back and forth.

But after putting up a valiant fight on each occasion, he was unfortunately arrested on a warrant when he accidentally missed a court date. It was then that he was placed on Rikers Island.

“I missed the date and they arrested me and put me on Rikers Island where immigrants and illegal immigrants are held pending deportation. I had already appealed to the Supreme Court and the hearing was supposed to be on December 6, 2006.

“When that date came, I informed the captain at Rikers Island that I needed to go to the hearing to present my case since I was representing myself, but he told me that they were not aware of that and would not let me go. I later learnt that the case was dismissed because I was not there.”

Harvey said he was even more upset when one day he was informed by authorities at Rikers Island that he was being deported to Barbados the very next day. He charged that officials at the Barbados Consulate office should never have issued his travel documents.

“They were aware that I was fighting the deportation and before they issue travel documents they had a right to interview me first to verify that I had exhausted all of my appeals, but they never met with me. Next thing I knew, I was on a plane to Barbados.”

Leaving his family behind and the only home he really knew was not easy for Harvey since he had only returned to Barbados once after leaving as a teenager. But he confessed that when he alighted from the plane he was amazed at the progress Barbados had made and he found it easy to settle back home.

But Harvey has already started proceedings to get back into the United States, not because he wants to, since he has fallen in love with Barbados, but because he strongly believes that the United States wrongfully deported him.

“When I got to Barbados and I went through all of my court files I realized that there [was] a portion of my immigration court records which never went to the Board of Immigration Appeals because they were removed from the records. The immigration law states that unless the entire record goes to the Board of Appeals, they can’t find you deportable.

“I could have gone to Canada and then go over to New York and let them arrest me and fight it from there, but I have decided to guide my wife through the filing and the proceedings and fight it from here,” he stated.

Harvey said he has already won round one by being issued with a visa.

He is strongly against the United States deporting people like himself who have no real ties to their country of birth.

“I have been living in the United States since I was 15 years old, that is the only place I knew. I was 55 when I came back here and I am disabled due to a spine injury, so I cannot work. I will not be entitled to any tax benefits in Barbados. Everything I have, including my family, is in the United States. They should not break up families like that.”

Harvey is still elated that his lawsuit had helped hundreds more who were being illegally detained on Rikers Island.

“Rikers Island was seen as a dumping ground but after I sued, it changed everything and they had to set free all the persons who they were holding for more than 48 hours.

I believe that the United States is wrong to want to deport so many persons back to their countries of birth. It is really sad because some of those people don’t deserve to be sent back.”