After ten months, multiple phone calls, and an official complaint to Washington D.C., the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has agreed to give Father James Manship the $7,000 that it owes him.
Manship put up the money in June 2007, to pay the bond for Delfino Perez-Corona, who was arrested in the ICE raids in Fair Haven two years ago. After Perez-Corona returned to Mexico voluntarily and filed the appropriate papers in June 2008, ICE was obligated to return the bond money to Manship.
But it hasn’t. The agency has held onto the $7,000 for over ten months.
Finally, on Tuesday, following a formal complaint by Father Manship, ICE said that the bond had been canceled and that the money would be returned in four to six weeks.
The situation is complicated by the fact that the money is in fact owed indirectly to Perez-Corona himself. When Perez-Corona was arrested, Manship raised the $7,000 in bail money from among the parishioners at St Rose of Lima Church in Fair Haven. When Perez-Corona was released, he repaid Manship and the community. Father Manship has been waiting for the money from ICE, so that he can send it to Perez-Corona, who is trying to restart his life in Mexico.
Student attorneys from Yale Law School, who filed the complaint for Manship, say that ICE has illegally held onto bond money belonging to at least two other immigrants arrested in the 2007 raids.
Seeking the return of the funds, Manship made multiple phone calls to ICE, to no avail. Finally, on April 14 2009, with the help of student attorneys at the Yale Law School, Manship put in a complaint straight to the top. The nine-page document lists, among several defendants, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and ICE Assistant Secretary John Torres. (Click here to read the document.)
Anant Saraswat, a law student at Yale, said that the official complaint was directed straight to the heads in D.C. because it was unknown who below them was responsible. “We really have no choice but to direct this to the people at the top,” he said.
According to the complaint, Manship made calls to offices in Hartford and Burlington, Massachusetts, inquiring about the status of the bond. At one point, he was allegedly told that Perez-Corona’s file was in “another department,” and given no further details.
Saraswat also made numerous phonecalls of inquiry on the matter. Eventually, he was told to call the U.S. Consulate in Mexico. He left multiple messages there, but was never able to reach a live person.
“It definitely wasn’t supposed to take this long,” Saraswat said. “The typical waiting time, as I understand it, is four or five months.” Saraswat said that it was unclear if the delay was “intentional” or “administrative.”
“Either way it’s unacceptable,” said Dale Kotchka-Alanes, another student attorney on the case. “I think it’s horrible. It’s a blatant violation of not only the law, but [ICE’s] own regulations and practices.”
Kotchka-Alanes said that the delayed refund of the $7,000 has been “a real hardship” for Perez-Corona.
Father Manship is in Mexico and was unreachable for comment. A spokesperson from ICE said by email that “ICE does not comment on cases pending litigation.”