Has US ICE Gone Completely Mad?

This is an example of what is wrong in our country. The short story, a 40 woman who was brought to the US when she was less than a year-old is facing deportation charges because she voted. Read on...From the BBC and the AP

Zoila Meyer, 40, was investigated by immigration officials acting on a tip-off after she won election to the city council of Adelanto in 2004.

Ms Meyer, originally from Cuba, quit after 10 weeks in office and applied to become a naturalized citizen.

But this month, she was arrested after investigators turned up at her home.

The mother-of-four had pleaded guilty in April last year to illegally voting in the election three years ago as a non-US citizen.

She was placed on probation and fined after admitting a misdemeanour charge of fraudulent voting.

But on 18 June, immigration officials showed up at her home and told her to go to their San Bernardino office, where she was handcuffed and arrested.

"I'm scared," she told the Associated Press. "How can they just pluck me out of my family, my kids?

"If they can do this to me, they can do it to anybody."

Meyer was bailed and is due to appear on 18 July before an immigration judge, who will decide whether she should be deported to Canada, the last point of entry into the US on her record.

Ms Meyer currently lives in the San Bernardino County desert town of Apple Valley, where she has been studying for degrees to work in the justice system as a forensic nurse.

Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said: "People are arrested on immigration charges from all walks of life.

"She can plead her case before an immigration judge, if she feels that she has reason to seek release for removal."

From the AP

All of her life, Zoila Meyer believed she was an American. She even won election to the City Council of Adelanto.

But now she is facing a threat of deportation for illegally voting, because she never became a citizen after being brought to this country from Cuba when she was a year old.

On June 18, Meyer said, immigration officials showed up at her home and told her to appear at their San Bernardino office.

Her husband drove her to the office Tuesday, “and they handcuffed me,” Meyer said. “They put me in jail and they frisked me and processed me.”

“I said ‘You’re doing this because I voted?” ’

Meyer was released pending a July 18 appearance before an immigration judge who will determine whether she will be deported to Canada, the last point of entry into the U.S. recorded in her immigration record.

Meyer said she and her parents had visited Canada and she had gone many times to Mexico without anyone ever asking her to prove her citizenship.

Meyer said she does not support illegal immigration but she thinks immigration procedures should be changed to prevent misunderstandings.

“It makes me feel like we’re all just numbers,” she said of her case. “I see people writing ‘this is my country.’ It really isn’t. It belongs to the government and they decide who stays and who goes. ... You think you’re free; you’re really not.”