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Matt Katz

15 Oct, 11 tweets, 4 min read

Julio Colcas,55, Green Card holder who lived in NY-NJ for 40 yrs, had 2 old drug charges. ICE was detaining him in Newark but released him 6 months ago due to Covid. Then last week, ICE suddenly * re-arrested * him. Tonite he was apparently deported. And here's what's wild...1/9

Last Monday, he checked in with ICE -- as he has every month since his release. Last Wednesday, he said ICE called him & said there was something wrong with his ankle bracelet: Can you come in so we can swap it out? So he went to ICE's office in Newark, where he was cuffed.2/9

After 6 months out Colcas was brought back to the Essex County Jail's ICE detention. He is lucid, funny & smart, but he has physical & mental illnesses. A psychologist said he was suicidal, "emotionally fragile," and "not capable of defending himself independently" in court. 3/9

And yet Colcas has now apparently been sent to Peru, where he hasn't been in 4 decades, without his 2 kids. After his release 6 months ago, he was thrilled. He started working again. He hung with his grandson...A granddaughter was born Friday, 2 days after his re-detention. 4/9

When Colcas first got out in April, after 2 years in jail, he told me: "I was happy as hell...When I left everyone was clapping, yay! It gives them hope--by me leaving it gives them hope it could happen to them too." He got a job & didn't commit a crime. 5/9

So: Colcas was first released by ICE due to Covid. Yet he was returned to jail just as Covid cases creep back up in Essex County. Sure enough, when he got back to jail, he tested Covid positive, thereby endangering detainees & officers. He was put in solitary confinement. 6/9

When I spoke to him this morning, he was upset about missing his granddaughter's birth, and worried about having to spend many more months in ICE detention. He was not expecting to be deported, hours later. 7/9

I asked ICE's Newark Office why Colcas was re-arrested, and whether it's lying to him & others about busted ankle bracelets in order to make easy arrests. I got this short statement in response: "2 Peruvians were recently put on charter flights and removed to Peru." 8/9

@WNYC

That indicates Colcas is deported. I haven't heard from him.
--
More background on Colcas from when his unit at the jail went on hunger strike (gothamist.com/news/covid-19-…) and when he was first released in April (gothamist.com/news/ice-quiet…).
--
I'll update here, @WNYC,@Gothamist. 9/9

@AllOfItWNYC

Headed on @AllOfItWNYC right now with an update on Colcas' case, and a broader look at Trump Administration immigration changes overall. Listen at @ WNYC.org 10/10

UPDATE: Colcas has NOT been deported. He just called me from jail. ICE in Newark hasn't explained why my q about why/how Colcas was re-detained was met ONLY with this cryptic reply appearing to mean deportation:
"2 Peruvians were recently put on charter flights & removed to Peru"

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More from @mattkatz00

Matt Katz

@mattkatz00

3 Jan

@NewJerseyOAG

News: A popular Facebook page that trafficked in anti-Semitic stereotypes under the guise of concern about overdevelopment in Orthodox Jewish areas around Lakewood, NJ, is now down, after months of complaints by the @NewJerseyOAG. It was called Rise Up Ocean County. A thread -->

Last April the state AG's office first wrote a letter to Facebook about the (very popular!) page, noting its menacing videos & the hateful comments under posts, like: “We need to get rid of them like Hitler did.” But Facebook apparently did nothing. nj.gov/oag/newsreleas…

Now, anti-Semitic violence in Monsey, Jersey City and Brooklyn has been linked to that very same kind of overdevelopment, as if Jews brought the violence on themselves by their real estate practices. That's what a Jersey City school board member said: hudsoncountyview.com/after-richards…

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Matt Katz

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16 Dec 19

I spent 6 weeks in Japan reporting on a thing that doesn’t get much attention: The thousands of asylum seekers from across the world who fly into Tokyo. Almost none win legal refugee status. Many get detained. And so I went to find out why, and what it means. #RefugeesInJapan 1/?

@WNYC

This week, @WNYC & @Gothamist launch an audio series detailing what I learned. Japan’s immigration issues parallel those in the U.S., because this is a global phenomenon: We’re in an age of mass worldwide displacement, and the systems we have to deal with that are obsolete. 2/?

Japan, the U.S. & 143 nations signed the U.N. refugee accords, but international law no longer protects asylum seekers fleeing for new reasons: Climate change, sexual violence, ethnic strife, police corruption, poverty. Many are dismissed as mere economic migrants. 3/?

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Matt Katz

@mattkatz00

22 Feb 19

@WNYC

Scoop: Detainees at the largest immigrant lock-up in the New York region, the Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark, were held in their cells for days earlier this month as helmet-clad officers swept the facility for contraband, @WNYC has learned.
wnyc.org/story/immigran…

Immigrants were allowed 10 minutes, twice each day to leave their cells and use the shower, phone and microwave, according to attorneys and detainees. County officials said this went on for 2 days for some. Detainees said it was 5 days. The impetus? Unspecified security threat.

@DHSOIG

The lockdown came days before the inspector general for Department of Homeland Security-@DHSOIG-released a scathing report about conditions, safety & security at the facility. Essex, which is run by Dems, gets $40 million a year to hold ICE arrestees. wnyc.org/story/abandone…

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Matt Katz

@mattkatz00

15 Feb 19

News: Essex County Jail in NJ, which has a $34 million contract with ICE to detain 800 immigrants, is the focus of a scathing ICE Inspector General report
that says there are "significant threats to detainee health and safety,” like a LOADED GUN that a detainee found & moldy food

Here's some slimy, discolored lunch meat and what the inspectors described as a "foul-smelling and unrecognizable" hamburger patty. When I first saw the picture I thought it was burnt toast. This is from a surprise visit last July.

Inspectors also found blood from raw chickens leaking all over the refrigerator & moldy bread that they were told was for bread pudding for detainees, who have been complaining about sickness & food poisoning. The county apparently fired the food manager...during the inspection.

Read 11 tweets

Matt Katz

@mattkatz00

30 Jan 19

@WNYC

I just finished reading "LET ME FINISH" by Chris Christie. I think "I TOLD YOU SO, IDIOTS" would have been a more apt title, but he didn't ask me for my suggestion...I have some other thoughts on the book--hear me talk about it on @WNYC this am, or follow along with this thread->

He goes AFTER Jared Kushner, whom he emasculates with descriptions like his "soft quiver" voice, and whom he blames for not getting AG or VP. Kushner also fired Christie as chair of the transition, which Christie repeatedly blames for everything that has gone wrong with Trump.

YET: Trump himself avoids almost all criticism, as if Trump had no say over the "grifters" that Trump himself appointed. Christie calls Trump "utterly fearless" and says he has “unparalleled self-confidence” and a “keen understanding of what regular people are feeling.”

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Matt Katz

@mattkatz00

7 Dec 18

@TheTakeaway

ICE & the long, meandering history of American immigration policy is the focus of today's episode of @TheTakeaway, which I had the privilege of hosting. You can listen to it right now -- wnycstudios.org/story/podcast-… -- but here's a thread breaking out all the segments...1/6

Bergen County, NJ, residents should listen to this one: Erik Jurek has been held at the Bergen Jail for a visa violation for a year without arguing his case b4 a judge. He complained about jail conditions: Negligent medical care & lack of basics like seats, jackets, razors. 2/6

Did you know white people could just walk into the U.S. and become citizens automatically for most of the United States' early history? Professor Aviva Chomsky argues that the immigration system has always been about restricting races from entry. 3/6

Read 7 tweets

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