Deportation Battle Continues For ICE Detainee Transferred Out Of NJ – Newark, NJ Patch

NEWARK, NJ — It’s been almost a year since New Jersey banned prisons from making deals with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold federal immigration detainees awaiting deportation. But for many detainees who were transferred out of the state following the passage of the landmark law, the struggle continues, advocates say.

They include Romeo Konneh.

According to advocates speaking on his behalf, the father of four is scheduled to be deported Wednesday. It’s only the latest legal crisis for Konneh, a Liberian native who fled to Guinea as a child with his family, and entered the U.S. as a lawful permanent resident – also known as a “green card holder” – in 2007.

After carving out a life in the U.S., Konneh was picked up by ICE more than a decade later in 2019 while living in Philadelphia. And that kicked off his extended stay in the U.S. prison system.

Patch has reached out to ICE spokespeople for comment. We’ll update this article with any reply we receive; check back for updates.

A SERIES OF TRANSFERS

From 2019 to 2021, Konneh was incarcerated in New Jersey detention facilities, including Essex and Bergen County, riding out the coronavirus pandemic behind bars – like many other detainees. Read More: Stuck In Jail During A Pandemic: Coronavirus Hits NJ Prisons

In August 2021, New Jersey passed a landmark law that bans all prisons in the state – public or private – from making new contracts with ICE. Prisons also aren’t able to expand or renew old agreements. Read More: NJ Bans Prisons From Making Deals To Hold Immigrants For ICE

Many immigration rights groups cheered the move, which they’d been demanding for years. But some also warned that it’s imperative to continue advocating for the detainees, who aren’t being released – just transferred to another facility. Read More: Outrage, Lawsuit In NJ After ICE Transfers 30 Immigrant Detainees

Such was the case for Konneh, who was sent out of New Jersey to the Buffalo Service Processing Center in Batavia, New York in November 2021. A month later, he was transferred again, this time to the Florence Correctional Center in Arizona. Then it was back to Batavia, until yet another transfer to the Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana.

Kathy O’Leary, Pax Christi NJ region coordinator, said the group believes Konneh is currently being held at a facility outside of Dallas, Texas. There, he’s gone on a hunger strike along with several other detainees awaiting deportation, she said.

For Konneh – who has diabetes and has complained about allegedly subpar medical treatment while in ICE custody – hunger strikes pose a special concern, she added.

O’Leary said that a coalition of groups including Pax Christi NJ, the Interfaith Campaign for Just Closures, First Friends of NJ and NY, and the Northern NJ Sanctuary Coalition are cooperating on a campaign to keep Konneh in the United States.

“Since December we have been working on getting community support for Romeo,” O’Leary said. “We supplied local congressional representatives who also sit on the DHS Subcommittee with a letter signed by over 50 organizations and individuals advocating for Romeo’s release.”

The team includes Konneh’s 10-year-old daughter, Mayamou – a U.S. citizen along with her other siblings – who recorded a heartfelt message in December thanking supporters for keeping her father from being deported so far. Listen to it here.

In their letter, the activists pointed out that Konneh’s wife, Fanta Donzo, entered the U.S. with refugee status, and has recently applied for naturalization. But the backlog is so severe that it will be a significant length of time before the application is adjudicated, they said.

Advocates argued:

“Because of several criminal convictions, Mr. Konneh has been ordered deported and is in detention and separated from his family since August of 2019. Based on the latest guidelines for prosecutorial discretion, his deportation should not be considered a priority. We are respectfully requesting that he be released and granted a stay or deferral of deportation. You will find a detailed explanation of our reasoning here.”

Advocates said that mitigating factors in Konneh’s case include:

• His long presence in the United States
• The impact of his removal on his family in the United States
• His eligibility for immigration relief

According to his supporters, in 2017 and 2019, Konneh pled guilty to aggravated assault, fraudulent use of credit cards, possession of a forged instrument and resisting arrest – for which his punishment was nothing more than fines and probation.

“None of his crimes show any of the aggravating factors that are listed in the September 30, 2021 memo from Secy. Mayorkas, nor did the judge who had in front of him the entire criminal record see any aggravating factors. If the judge had seen evidence of serious criminal conduct, it would have been reflected in his sentencing and Romeo would have been jailed, but he was not.”

“Had ICE given this case more than a cursory look they would have found that the sentencing for these crimes indicated that the criminal justice system did not deem Romeo to be a risk to public safety,” advocates argued.

“It is exceedingly unfortunate and entirely unjust that Romeo has effectively been sentenced to years of imprisonment by ICE for such minor infractions,” advocates continued. “However, they have an opportunity to correct their errors and release Romeo to his family and issue a stay of deportation on humanitarian grounds.”

‘A WORSE OUTCOME FOR THEIR CHILDREN’

Those “humanitarian grounds” include his 8-year-old son, advocates said.

According to his supporters:

“Romeo and Fanta’s second child and eldest son is now 8 ½. He does not speak. Romeo also reports that his eldest son acts younger than his younger brother who is 4. Romeo reports that his eldest son has issues with self-care in that he does not shower or dress on his own. Romeo believes that his disability extends beyond speech. The child was evaluated for special services by the school district when the family was living together in Philadelphia prior to Romeo’s detention. The child was placed at a Head Start program where he received related services, reportedly speech therapy. Romeo was responsible for taking him to and from school. He would also use this opportunity to speak with staff at the school to inquire about the child’s progress and advocate for him.”

Advocates continued:

“However, after Romeo was detained, Fanta, who was then pregnant with the couple’s fourth child, struggled to pick up their children from daycare, the Head Start program, school and get to her job on time. Fanta made the decision to remove her eldest son from the program where he was receiving services. She did so in part because she was overwhelmed with the increased demands of providing for the family financially and picking up the children, without Romeo’s help and in part because she believed that the child was not making progress.”

Things began to snowball from that point, advocates said:

“When the family was evicted from their apartment after Romeo was detained and shortly after Romeo’s hearing in October of 2019, Fanta and the children relocated to Darby. They moved into a single bedroom in small attached home that Fanta and the children share with other family members. As a result, the children changed school districts. The current district is just now, in the winter of 2022, considering placing Romeo’s son in a special classroom for speech.”

Being a working single parent with no formal education, extremely limited literacy skills and three other children makes it “virtually impossible” for Konneh’s wife to even attempt to meet the specialized needs of her eldest son, advocates asserted, making his role in the family indispensable.

“If Romeo is deported and Fanta were to choose to return to Liberia with the U.S. citizen children, it is very reasonable to expect an even worse outcome for their children particularly their eldest son,” advocates said.

Konneh’s birth family no longer lives in Liberia, and he has no ties to the country, they added.

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