{"id":2757,"date":"2015-04-08T19:51:59","date_gmt":"2015-04-08T19:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/166.62.41.2\/~holaamericanews\/2015\/04\/08\/des-moines-community-leader-killed-in-mexico-after-deportation\/"},"modified":"2015-04-08T19:51:59","modified_gmt":"2015-04-08T19:51:59","slug":"des-moines-community-leader-killed-in-mexico-after-deportation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/des-moines-community-leader-killed-in-mexico-after-deportation\/","title":{"rendered":"DES MOINES COMMUNITY LEADER KILLED IN MEXICO AFTER DEPORTATION"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Mexican police officer denied asylum in US shows need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform now<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Des Moines, IA.\u00a0 On Sunday night Constantino Morales, a community leader on immigration issues in Iowa, was shot and killed after being deported to Mexico on September 2, 2014.\u00a0 Constantino, a former police officer for the Guerrero State Police Force in Mexico, came to the United States in 2010 after being assaulted three times by armed men and receiving threats while working.<\/p>

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In 2011, Constantino joined Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement when he experienced wage theft in Iowa and racial profiling by the local police departments.\u00a0 He became more involved in immigrant justice issues and quickly became a community leader in Des Moines, helping lead actions related to immigration reform, sharing his testimony and getting others in the community involved in fighting for fair and just immigration reform.<\/p>\n

In 2011 Constantino received his first notice to appear before court for residing in the US without documentation. Due to the fact that he had been a police officer in Mexico, Constantino told the immigration judge that he was scared to return home, the judge told him to apply for asylum. He applied for asylum in June 2013 and was denied asylum on February 27, 2014.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t stop there.\u00a0 Members of the community started a \u201cStop Constantino\u2019s Deportation\u201d campaign.\u00a0 Community leaders and Constantino met with former Congressman Latham, Senator Grassley, Des Moines Sherriff Bill McCarthy, State Legislators, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) staff and other appointed and elected officials who could have weighed in to stop Constantino\u2019s deportation.\u00a0 They also started asking other Iowans to write letters and make phone calls to ICE to ask them to cancel the deportation \u2013 generating hundreds of postcards and over 200 calls to ICE.<\/p>\n

As a former Mexican police officer who stood up to publicly against drug trafficking he knew that if he returned to Mexico he would face grave danger.<\/p>

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At a meeting on August 6, 2013, Constantino told Rep. Latham, \u201cIf I am sent back, I will face more violence and I could lose my life. We are in severe need of fair immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship. We don\u2019t want any excuses; we know you can make this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April 2014, CCI members were in WashingtonD.C. and pleaded with Senator Grassley to take action to stop Constantino\u2019s deportation.<\/p>

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On April 21, 2014, Iowa CCI sent a\u00a0second request for prosecutorial discretion<\/a>, with\u00a0letters of support from Des Moines Sherriff Bill McCarthy and Iowa State Representative Bruce Hunter<\/a>, but the request was denied.\u00a0 Prosecutorial discretion is the authority of an agency or officer \u00a0to exercise discretion in deciding when to prosecute and when not to prosecute based on a priority system has long been recognized as a critical part of U.S. law.\u00a0 Specifically, prosecutorial discretion may be exercised when deciding whether to: issue a detainer; initiate removal proceedings; focus enforcement resources on particular violations or conduct; stop, question, or arrest a particular person; detain or release someone on bond, supervision, or personal recognizance; settle or dismiss a removal case; stay a final order of removal; pursue an appeal; and\/or execute a removal order.<\/p>\n

The news of Constantino\u2019s death has saddened and angered the Latino and Immigrant Rights Community.<\/p>

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\u201cThis tragedy could have been prevented,\u201d\u00a0 said Luis Rodriguez, CCI Leader.\u00a0 \u201cPeople are dying while Congress and our elected officials fail to act. How many more people have to die?\u201d<\/p>\n

Every year, thousands of people are torn apart from their families and deported back to Mexico and other Latin American countries.\u00a0 There are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States that live in the shadows, who fear deportation.<\/p>

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CCI and other community leaders are planning a vigil to honor and remember Constantino and his passion for helping undocumented immigrants escape from the shadows.\u00a0 More details to come about time, date and location of vigil. Constantino Morales is survived by a wife and six children.<\/p>\n

\u00a0VIGIL:<\/strong>Sunday April 12 \u00a0Trinity United Methodist \u00a0\/ Las Americas 1548 8th St Des Moines, IA from 12pm – 1:30pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Check out the latest issue of Hola Iowa by clicking in the picture below:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Former Mexican police officer denied asylum in US shows need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform now\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"es","enabled_languages":["en","es"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}