We know today’s been especially tough for the Obama Bros — so why not throw a little more on the pile?
On Friday, the L.A. Times did a story on U.S. citizens who had mistakenly been targeted by ICE. One of the individuals who had been wrongly detained was Davino Watson, who was held in a detention center for three and a half years:
ICE held an American man in custody for 1,273 days. He’s not the only one who had to prove his citizenship https://t.co/GknaPEvlxQ pic.twitter.com/A2CE7FwOFP
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) April 27, 2018
When Jon Favreau found out about it, he was disgusted:
ICE is awful. AWFUL. https://t.co/ENXTUZxW6Q
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) April 27, 2018
Yeah … here’s the thing, though:
This.?Happened.?When.?Your.?Boss.?@BarackObama.?Was.?President.? https://t.co/N95swWeHkI
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) April 30, 2018
More from NPR:
In 2007, Watson pleaded guilty to selling cocaine. When his sentence ended in May 2008, he was arrested by ICE officers.
Watson had already told them he was a citizen and given them his father and stepmother’s names and a phone number to call and confirm.ICE officers didn’t call the number. They did attempt to look up his father, Hopeton Ulando Watson, but they confused him with a Hopeton Livingston Watson.
Hopeton Livingston Watson — the wrong Hopeton Watson — was not a U.S. citizen. He also lived in Connecticut instead of New York, didn’t have a son named Davino and arrived in the U.S. at a different time. But the officers apparently didn’t notice the mistakes. Based on the wrong file, they concluded that Watson was not a citizen and marked him for deportation.
A yearslong ordeal followed as Davino Watson, while detained, tried to fight his deportation in a complex case involving both U.S. and Jamaican laws.
He wasn’t released until November 2011.
Barack Obama was sworn in in January 2009. Which means that Watson spent nearly three years in a detention center on Obama’s watch. Maybe Favreau should’ve written a speech in which Obama could’ve condemned ICE and its awful awfulness.
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Related:
Jon Favreau aims for Washington’s response to Michelle Wolf, GROIN PUNCHES Obama by accident
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