Pedro Ramirez is the Poster Child for Need for Bold, Consistent Executive Action TODAY
With recent reports suggesting that the President will delay his executive action announcement on immigration until after the elections, one family in Ohio is paying the price for the White House’s inaction.
After receiving a stay of deportation one year ago, Lorain, Ohio resident Pedro Hernandez-Ramirez just received word that his renewal has been denied. Since receiving the stay of deportation in 2013 Pedro’s situation has not changed in any way—he is still a law-abiding family man, still the primary caretaker of his eldest son who has severe cerebral palsy, still the husband of a U.S. citizen and father of four. Yet the Detroit Field Office decided to deny Pedro’s renewal request because he didn’t take the “appropriate steps to prepare for removal.”
If you’re wondering why not preparing for removal after receiving a stay of removal is considered grounds for removal, so are we.
Seleste Wisniewski, Pedro’s U.S. citizen wife, said this:
We got the news from ICE today and it’s just–devastation. The struggle to keep our family together. What don’t kill me will make me stronger. I feel like I’m on death row, waiting for the needle to bring relief. Why are they going after my family? My husband? I’m barely keeping it together here. Please Lord, not again.
Renewing Pedro’s stay request should have been a no-brainer for ICE, based on their own prosecutorial discretion policy. However, Rebecca Adducci, the ICE Detroit Field Office Director presiding over Pedro’s case, has an ugly history of failing to follow her own agency’s directives and targeting peaceful immigrant families with a vengeance.
According to David Leopold, Pedro’s attorney:
Nothing in the past year has changed since Pedro was first granted his stay request. So why now would he all the sudden be a priority for deportation? The fact that ICE can’t answer that question in a sensible manner is telling. We’re going to fight this tooth and nail until this family gets the relief they deserve. It didn’t need to be this way, but unfortunately for Seleste and her family, it is.
In addition to qualifying for ICE’s existing policy of prosecutorial discretion, Pedro meets multiple criteria that would likely qualify for the type of deportation relief under consideration by the White House, including his years of residence in the United States, children, and marriage to a U.S. citizen.
Added, Lynn Tramonte, Deputy Director of America’s Voice:
President Obama must act take charge of immigration enforcement today—not tomorrow, not next week, and certainly not in two months when the elections are over. Seleste, Pedro, and the entire Ramirez family are living a nightmare that the President can end. Did we really need more proof that families are suffering every single day that Congress and the President fail to do their jobs? I didn’t think so, but now we have it. It’s time to finally do the right thing.
Watch Pedro and his family on Rojo Vivo last year here.
