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For Undocumented Mother in Patchogue, Small Mistake May Have Life-Changing Consequences

Posted July 16, 2010 by Ted Hesson

In general, Sandra Punin-Castillo was a safe driver, her family said. As a stay-at-home mom caring for her 1-year-old son, she might use the car to buy groceries or diapers—local driving in Patchogue, the Suffolk County town where she lived with her husband, son, and sisters.

However, on June 14, a fender-bender with another vehicle near South Ocean Middle School, just minutes from her home, would change her life dramatically.

According to her family and lawyer, an officer from the Suffolk County Police Department reported to the scene of the accident, and soon learned from Punin-Castillo—a 22-year-old undocumented Ecuadorian immigrant—that she was driving without a license.

A warrant check for her name found that she had an outstanding “administrative warrant”—a deportation order for failing to appear before an immigration judge in 2006 after she was caught crossing the US-Mexico border in Texas at the age of 17. After seeing the warrant, the Suffolk police officer contacted a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official.

With her young son in the car, the officer cuffed Punin-Castillo and brought her to the local precinct, her family says.

Within a 24-hour period, she was transferred to an immigration detention center in Manhattan and then to a detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., where she’s currently in deportation proceedings. Punin-Castillo will be able to stay in the US as long as the Ecuadorian consulate continues to put a hold on her return paperwork to Ecuador, waiting for her lawyers to decide whether or not they can make a case for her.

Several immigration lawyers who I spoke with about the case were not surprised to hear that Punin-Castillo went from a ticketable offense like driving without a license to imminent deportation.

“In the Bronx and Queens they don’t call ICE as quickly, but in Long Island they do,” said Edwin Rivera, an attorney with knowledge of the case. “They definitely do.”

For an administrative warrant as such, it’s unclear if local police are obligated by law to contact immigration officials, and area policies vary widely.

Over the past decade, Suffolk County has earned a reputation for enforcing immigration laws more aggressively than Nassau County or New York City, with County Executive Steve Levy supporting immigration home raids and employing harsh rhetoric against immigrants, at one point even referring to US-citizen children of immigrants as “anchor babies.”

In addition, the Department of Justice is currently investigating claims of discriminatory policy against Hispanics in the county.

With that in mind, I submitted an information request to the Suffolk County Police Department last week regarding their policy for contacting immigration officials, but the request is still pending. Telemundo quoted Suffolk police saying that the official in question contacted immigration officials after seeing the outstanding warrant for Punin-Castillo, “as is required by law.”

Although I haven’t heard back from Suffolk police, I was able to reach a Nassau County Police Department official, and I asked him about similar cases in his jurisdiction.

Kevin Smith, a public information officer with the Nassau County Police Department said that the decision to contact immigration officials is “pretty much up to the officer ‘s discretion.” In the case of an unlicensed driver—even one with an outstanding deportation order—an officer would likely write the person a ticket and not contact immigration officers.

“If I’m responding to the scene of an accident and a person doesn’t have their license, or if I’m pulling someone over and they don’t have their license, then I’m giving them a ticket if I can verify who they are.”

A deportation order like that of Punin-Castillo is a civil, not criminal, warrant, and therefore isn’t a priority for Nassau police, Smith said. He also said that if an officer does contact immigration officials in a case like this, it’s not unusual for immigration officials to ignore the warrant themselves.

However, if a Nassau officer is unable to verify the identity of an unlicensed driver through either insurance, registration, or passport, or feels that the person’s identity is questionable, the officer will likely arrest the person, Smith said. Once in police custody, it’s likely that an officer will contact immigration officials.

I’m not sure what identification, if any, Punin-Castillo was carrying at the time of the accident.

The randomness of the deportation shocked her family, who couldn’t think of another example of a Patchogue resident being deported after a minor traffic infraction.

During a visit to her home, her husband Antonio, a 25-year-old construction worker, told me that when Punin-Castillo calls him from the detention center, she often cries and says that she misses her son, Joseph.

Although Punin-Castillo’s husband and sisters have cared for Joseph since she was taken into custody, if she is deported to Ecuador, Joseph—who is an American citizen—will join her there.

Earlier this week the judge handling her case denied a request to reopen the deportation order, significantly reducing the chances that she’ll be able to remain in the US.

Her lawyer is still working on the case, and there may still be motions that she can file based on the circumstances of her deportation order (she was a minor at the time she was apprehended at the border) and her family situation (her father may be able to sponsor her for citizenship), but the judge’s refusal to reopen her deportation order will make the case challenging.

At the local level, the question remains as to whether Suffolk or Nassau police are obligated by law to contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement in cases like that of Punin-Castillo.

Immigrant rights advocate Rev. Allan Ramirez, of the Brookville Reformed Church, spoke with Telemundo about Punin-Castillo’s case, and blasted Suffolk officials for double-talk on immigration policy. Translated from Spanish:

“[Suffolk officials] have told us time and time again that when these incidents happen, low-level types, that is to say, they don’t call immigration,” Ramirez said. “But this shows that they do call immigration.”

Tags : administrative warrant, deportation, ecuador, sandra punin-castillo, suffolk, suffolk police

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