A Long Flight of No Return -- Illegal aliens deported via Boeing 737

washingtonpost ^ | Tuesday, July 25, 2006; Page A01 | N.C. Aizenman

[dennisw]

The passengers -- 105 men shackled at the wrists and the ankles--grumbled their assent. Then they peered out the thick, blurry windows for a last glimpse of Virginia. Once, they had been hopeful newcomers to the United States. Now, they were about to leave for good on a deportation flight.

Jose de Jesus Galea, 37, stared morosely out his window, unmoved. The burly Salvadoran pet store owner had called Virginia home for 21 years. It seemed incredible, he said later, that he would never again see the flat, forested landscape that was receding rapidly from view.

Just as strange was the thought that he would soon be back in a country he last saw when he was 17. The year was 1985, El Salvador was in the throes of civil war, and Galea had just been discharged from one of the army's most ruthless battalions. Pressed into service when he was 14, Galea said he was taught to torture the unit's captives by pushing needles under their fingernails. He had buried innocent civilians alive, and he was haunted by guilty flashbacks of their screams. Now he was being deported back because of a drunken assault.

Those who are deported often come to the attention of immigration officials only because they commit a crime. Authorities in the Washington area often wait until they have a critical mass of deportees, then charter a plane to fly them to a detention facility near the U.S. border for final transport to their home countries.

Watching over them were 16 marshals, who had reason to be wary. About 45 percent of the deportees had been convicted of violent crimes. Others had committed offenses as minor as public drunkenness. Although most were Salvadorans, there were natives of the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Jamaica and Honduras.

[dennisw]

Brings to mind that "Con Air" movie

[texson66]

They all committed a crime ...they all entered illegally! Send them ALL home NOW!

[Pro-Bush]

Hasta la vista; adios!

[Utahrd]

We should have to rent those Antonovs; those big Soviet planes that you can fit a locomotive into.

[CitadelArmyJag]

Another Hit for Airbus, lol...

[VOA]

"A Long Flight of No Return "

What a load! They'll be back.
Because many do the mental calculus and decide it's worth risking that
long prison term if caught again.
And that sitting in a US jail beats living in their broken countries.
And hey, the Yankees don't really don't guard the border, so why not?

[Utahrd]

"Long flight of no return", what a joke.

Thanks to our useless president and our worse congress and their campaign contributors who need cheap labor; everyone on that flight will be back in the US by the time I'm done typing this.

[cripplecreek]

Leavin on a jet plane.....

[hipaatwo]

See if you can get through this Washington Post sob story about 100 illegal alien criminals being deported without getting your eyeballs stuck in your head from rolling them upwards repeatedly. Don't miss the multimedia slideshow full of poor, shackled deportees...with MS-13 gang tattoos!:

Hard for me to decide which takes the cake--the reporter's failure to corroborate the criminal deportees' anecdotes, the downplaying of the violent nature of the crimes committed by nearly half of those on the plane, the alarmism over mass deportations that will never happen under the Bush administration, or the foolish belief that the criminal deportees are on a journey of "no return."

Open-borders journalism at its worst. All that's missing is a hyperbolic slavery analogy.

Well, there's always a next time.

http://michellemalkin.com/

[gaijin]

Now he was being deported back because of a drunken assault.

Gosh, he got drunk and physically assaulted people in a country he knowingly invaded.

We're sooooooooooo strict....!

[Jameison]

Time to charge their home governments for the expense of transporting these people.
And charge the Mexican government for every penny we spend on Mexican illegals, including the tens of thousands of the suckers we put in jail.

[COEXERJ145]

Calling the President "useless" isn't a good idea for a newbie.

[gaijin]

Michelle Malkin.com

[hipaatwo]

Picture must be blocked

[spanalot]

isnt a boat cheaper?

[Ben Mugged]

Where is the gag alert!

[sheana]

Although U.S. authorities turn away or deport more than 1.6 million people attempting to cross the border illegally every year, once an immigrant manages to sneak into U.S. territory, the chances of getting caught are minimal. In 2004, the most recent year for which statistics are available, authorities deported only 104,000 immigrants who had been in the United States for three days or longer before they were apprehended. That's less than 1 percent of the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

in 2004 only 104,000 deported. Wasn't President Bush and then someone on this board recently touting the 1.6 mil number? rofl guess they were wrong and the President spinning as usual.

[martin_fierro]

Once, they had been hopeful ILLEGAL newcomers to the United States.

There. Fixed.

[Aria]

Cry me a river, scum!