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Street kid, 13, deported while awaiting appeal
EDWARD HEGSTROM
Houston Chronicle
December 25, 2001

Lawyers representing a 13-year-old Honduran street kid say the
U.S. government mistakenly deported him to Central America before his
asylum case could be tried on appeal.

The attorneys contend the child, Isau Flores-Portillo, could be
tortured back on the streets of Honduras - which was why he escaped
the country in the first place. Flores-Portillo has not been heard
from since his deportation in November.

"The longer we wait, the harder it gets to find him," said Eduardo
Serrano, the child's original attorney. "And his life may be in
danger."

Central American police have a well-established reputation for
clearing the streets of homeless kids by simply murdering them, a
process known in the region as "limpieza social" - social cleansing.

The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights has prepared a federal
lawsuit against the government alleging Flores-Portillo's right to
due process was violated. The lawsuit was mailed Friday, though it is
not expected to be processed by the court until after Christmas.

Representatives of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, who
were named in the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment Monday, a
federal holiday.

Just as an alleged criminal has a right to trial, an immigrant set
to be deported has the right to ask a judge to stop the deportation. So to
deport the child before the court has made its final ruling is
obviously wrong, according to Joe Vail, a law professor at the
University of Houston who has followed the case.

Vail said he found it particularly galling that after forcing
Flores-Portillo to leave the United States against his will, the
government then asked to have the asylum case dismissed because the
kid was no longer in the country.

"That's just outrageous," he said.

Honduras has become a particularly hostile place for street
children to survive. A U.S. State Department human rights report
notes Honduran "security forces were suspected of an estimated 200
extrajudicial killings, many involving persons under 18 years of age,
during the year (2000)."

Covenant House, which provides shelter and protection for the
kids, claims that more than 300 street children have been murdered in
Honduras since 1998.

Flores-Portillo was raised in the booming northern city of San
Pedro Sula, where his mother often left him for months and his
stepfather beat him repeatedly, according to the lawsuit to be filed
on his behalf.

After living on the streets of Honduras, Flores-Portillo decided
to walk to Texas. He arrived at Laredo in January 2000, where he was
stopped by the Border Patrol and taken into custody by the INS.

He stayed for a time at a Houston shelter for immigrant children
run by the Associated Catholic Charities. After Flores-Portillo threw
a shoe at a case worker there, the INS decided to transfer him to the
Liberty County Jail, according to Serrano. He was housed in a wing of
the jail with other minors who have entered the country illegally.

Serrano went to court seeking asylum for Flores-Portillo for the
teen's protection. After an immigration judge denied asylum in April,
Serrano appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

The BIA sent the case back to the judge in October, asking to give
special consideration to Flores-Portillo's claim for protection under
the Convention Against Torture. Three days later, the judge summarily
dismissed the case.

But Serrano still had the right to appeal to the BIA, where he
believed the case would receive a more favorable audience. He filed
Nov. 14, but then he learned his client had already been deported
nearly a week earlier.

"The INS did not even notify me that they were going to deport
him," something clearly required by law in a case involving a minor,
Serrano said. "I don't even know exactly where he was deported."

Last year, the Houston INS office admitted deporting a Mexican man
before his case went before an immigration judge. After being brought
back for a hearing, the man, Salvador Molina, won his case and was
allowed to stay.

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