Sri Lankan Tamils journey to US turns into ordeal

New York: The journey of five Sri Lankan Tamil men, who fled their homeland to avoid persecution, turned into an ordeal as after travelling through several countries they ended up languishing in American jails. A report in the New York Times details the journey of the five men who had left the island nation ravaged by decades of civil war in 2010 and travelled across seven countries to be smuggled into the US. Each of the men paid $55,000 to come to the US but were captured within hours of their arrival in South Florida. They then turned witnesses for the FBI in the investigation of their smugglers and believed that their cooperation would help them in their cases in immigration courts. [caption id=“attachment_1372793” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A demonstrator holds a placard during a protest against Sri Lanka’s President Rajapaksa. Reuters[/caption] However, despite having no criminal records, they have been languishing in immigration jails since late 2010 and waiting for their cases to be resolved. “Experts in immigration law say the cases highlight the subjective nature of immigration enforcement…And they raise broader questions about how the government treats undocumented immigrants who cooperate in trafficking investigations,” the report added. A lawyer for the men, all of Tamil-origin, said their deportations were imminent. Last week, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the detentions in federal court. “Jail life is a horrible life,” said one of the men, a 35-year-old fisherman who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his country’s record of arresting and torturing deportees of Tamil origin. If I stay here any longer, I will go crazy and, when I go back, I will be a mad person." The fisherman recounted the hardships he was facing in Sri Lanka, where he was being extorted for money and received death threats. He then came into contact with a smuggler who promised him a better life in the US. The fisherman left his wife and child and left for the US, travelling through Dubai, Moscow, Cuba and Haiti. The men were contacted by the FBI, who had been trying to prosecute the smuggler, a Canadian resident whose real name is Sri Kajamukam Chelliah and who was responsible for smuggling about 1,700 people into the US. The men testified against the smuggler for the promise that they would be freed from jail and united with their family in the US. However, the men received no help or lenience in return from immigration officials after Chelliah was convicted and sentenced. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in the report that even though the Sri Lankan men were not a danger to the community, they were being held without bond because they had no fixed address in the United States and were deemed flight risks. The men also applied for political asylum, saying they fear being persecuted if they were forced to return to Sri Lanka. But their case was heard by Judge Rex Ford, who according to an analysis by Syracuse University is the fifth-strictest immigration judge in the nation. Ford found that the stories by the Sri Lankan men were not credible and ordered them deported. The report said that the men are torn between their lawyers’ insistence on fighting for asylum and their desire to go home, even if to a dangerous and uncertain future. “When I left home, I left with one problem,” the fisherman said. “Now I am being deported, and I am taking two or three problems with me. They might arrest me at the airport, and if they don’t, I will be free and have problems with the smugglers. At least if they put me in jail in Sri Lanka, it won’t be for this long.” PTI