A Connecticut woman facing deportation this week instead will be allowed to stay in the United States after Connecticut’s top lawmaker and law enforcement officials “threw the kitchen sink” at federal immigration officials Tuesday.
Gov. Ned Lamont, Attorney General William Tong and U.S. Attorney John Durham each pushed officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Board of Immigration Appeals to reconsider its decision to deport longtime Hartford resident Wayzaro Walton to her native England before the end of the week.
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The immigration appeals agency agreed, holding an emergency meeting Tuesday afternoon to reverse its decision last year and issue a stay that will allow the 35-year-old Walton to remain in the U.S. with her wife and daughter while she appeals her deportation order.
Hartford, CT, 10/15/2019 Tamika Ferguson, of Hartford, wife of Wayzaro ‘Tazz’ Walton, celebrates her partern’s release. Supporters of Wayzaro ‘Tazz’ Walton, the Hartford resident who was scheduled to be deported gathered on the steps on the ICE on Main Street in Hartford on October 15, 2019. News of Walton’s stay of deportation spread the crowd before the 6:00 rally but tents were errected and the crowd grew as they demanded Walton’s release.
Hartford, CT, 10/15/2019 Tamika Ferguson, of Hartford, wife of Wayzaro ‘Tazz’ Walton, celebrates her partern’s release. Supporters of Wayzaro ‘Tazz’ Walton, the Hartford resident who was scheduled to be deported gathered on the steps on the ICE on Main Street in Hartford on October 15, 2019. News of Walton’s stay of deportation spread the crowd before the 6:00 rally but tents were errected and the crowd grew as they demanded Walton’s release. (Johnathon Henninger / Special to the Courant)
The decision came less than an hour before dozens of activists planned to protest in front of the immigration court in downtown Hartford to plead for the stay. Instead, the rally started with a more cheerful tone when Walton’s wife, Tamika Ferguson, flanked by Lamont and Tong, announced the news to the cheering crowd.
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“We debate a lot of big things over there in that building,” Lamont said, pointing to the Capitol a few blocks away. “Sometimes it’s the small things that make a big difference. Today I think we made a big difference.”
The personal involvement of Connecticut’s top leaders underscores how unusual officials view Walton’s case and that of a Bridgeport man, both of which pit the state’s pardon power against a federal crackdown on immigrants over the past two years.
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Both Walton and Jamaican-born Richard Marvin Thompson, of Bridgeport, have been ordered deported for past criminal offenses, even though both live in the U.S. legally and received full pardons for their crimes. Walton was pardoned for crimes, including a 2006 shoplifting incident, and Thompson received a pardon in 2017 for a second-degree assault charge that occurred in 2000 when he was 18 years old.
Federal immigration authorities changed procedure in 2018 and refused to honor those pardons, however, arguing a pardon must come from the president or a governor. Connecticut is one of only five states where pardons are issued by a pardon board and not the governor.
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Tong has authored court filings in support of both residents’ cases and argued unsuccessfully last month before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City to temporarily stay Walton’s deportation in order for her to argue that her pardon should be recognized.
The appellate panel dismissed that filing late last month, clearing the way for Walton’s deportation. When Tong received word the deportation could occur before the end of the week, he enlisted Lamont and Durham to help him make a last-ditch plea to federal officials Tuesday morning, he told the crowd of almost 100 activists gathered outside the courthouse.
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Attorney general asks federal appeals court to intervene as second Connecticut resident faces deportation despite receiving full pardon »
Tong and Durham each argued the legal case to immigration officials and Lamont reasoned with a representative of ICE, they said.
“He gave me a lot of very legal reasons why this and that and I said, ‘Look, you have discretion, you have compassion,’ ” Lamont said. “This is somebody that grew up in our state, this is somebody that has family in this state, this is somebody who has a child in this state. We’re all family, this is the way we think about Connecticut, and I wish in America we thought the same way.”
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Within hours, officials had reconsidered and issued the stay they previously had turned down in December 2018, Tong said.
“There’s no rule book for this, [the governor] just got on the field and threw a huge block,” Tong said. “They don’t tell you how to do this in governor school, you just make it happen.”
Hartford, CT, 10/15/2019 Tenaya Taylor, a Hartford resident and community organizer stands on Main Street. Supporters of Wayzaro ‘Tazz’ Walton, the Hartford resident who was scheduled to be deported gathered on the steps on the ICE on Main Street in Hartford on October 15, 2019. News of Walton’s stay of deportation spread the crowd before the 6:00 rally but tents were errected and the crowd grew as they demanded Walton’s release.
Hartford, CT, 10/15/2019 Tenaya Taylor, a Hartford resident and community organizer stands on Main Street. Supporters of Wayzaro ‘Tazz’ Walton, the Hartford resident who was scheduled to be deported gathered on the steps on the ICE on Main Street in Hartford on October 15, 2019. News of Walton’s stay of deportation spread the crowd before the 6:00 rally but tents were errected and the crowd grew as they demanded Walton’s release. (Johnathon Henninger / Special to the Courant)
The decision Tuesday marks only an incremental victory, however, leaders and activists said outside the immigration courthouse.
Walton remains in ICE custody in Massachusetts and Thompson in a detention facility in Alabama and the courts still have not resolved the question of Connecticut’s pardons, family and officials said.
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“The fight does not stop there,” Tamika Ferguson said, leading the crowd in chants of “Free Tazz,” Wayzaro Walton’s nickname. “So the fight will continue until Tazz is released.”
On Friday, Tong filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice demanding the federal government honor the state’s pardons. The lawsuit asks a federal court to conclude the state’s pardons are sufficient to waive deportation under the Pardon Waiver Clause of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which Tong has argued should have precluded the deportation orders issued against Walton and Thompson.
“This stay of deportation is a relief, but the truth is Wayzaro Walton should already be home with her wife and daughter, and she should never have been detained in the first place,” Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said. “Connecticut pardons should be recognized as full pardons, period.”
Tong’s lawsuit against DHS is pending in federal court in Connecticut. Walton will now continue to fight her deportation order while remaining in the U.S., attorney Erin O’Neil-Baker said. And the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston is expected to rule in Thompson’s case later this fall, Tong said.
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In the meantime, activists will continue to protest throughout Connecticut and try to raise awareness for those cases and others, said Alok Bhatt of the Connecticut Immigrant Rights Alliance. After the rally Tuesday, activists set up tents to stay outside the immigration courthouse in protest.
“We’ve seen seasons through this fight, right?” Bhatt said. “We’ve seen the leaves change, we’ve seen the snow come down, we’ve seen it melt, we’ve seen the summer. We’ve seen seasons through this fight and we’re going to continue to see how many more until we get what we need, which is for Tazz to be home and her family to be together and all of our communities and families to be together.”
Doesn’t the article say she is suppose to be deported to England? Nothing about her being Jamaican. Plus she is married to a woman, so we not claiming her.
Good ruling. And@ 10.49am , yes I am claiming her. She is a human being in irregardless of her sexual orientation which is none of my business.
Discrimination on any level is unacceptable. This is why we as black people cannot get respect or justice presently, we are discriminated against because of our colour, is this wrong? Discrimination is discrimination is discrimination.
Look what is happening presently in Jamaica? Jamaica is under Seigh where the government is making decisions that are not transparent to the citizens; police brutality is out of control; corruption is rife from the judiciary to the little man in the streets; the government wants to become a republic; the constitution has been changed without the citizens having a vote to its change; public hospitals are being neglected; minister in charge of education has been arrested for theft; paedophilia is rampant; human rights violation by the government is going unchecked; it seems as if the prisons is there only for the blacks and those that are poor; the crime rate has been sky rocketing; the government is giving ridiculous tax cuts to so called investors, who are milking the country dry and taking the money they make, out of the country, how is this investment. ? The government is only focusing on tourism for the country’s people in regards of getting employment, as receptionist, cooks or tour guides etc.
And most importantly, the government is selling out our little island to investors for little of nothing, giving them access to our sea , which contains relics which if they are retrieved can cut Jamaica’s debt to zero. Selling them lands that are adjacent to rivers, where pretty soon we the citizens will be buying back our water from these said investors. Government decrerceting our ancestors graves and land without second thoughts. Taking away land that was given to the Maroons, so that outside investors can capitalised off our only place where we can truly say this is where we are from. Coptic country and other designated parcels of land is not owned by the government to sell. The treaty signed stated that these land shall forever be owned by the ancestors, not one piece of this land can be sold, another part of the treaty stated that, the people will be able to grow their crop, this is being breached. And looking objectively at the decisions this present Prime Minister, it would seems as if he is leaning towards a communist dictatorship. Look at the actions of the security forces; the so called curfew , which seems to be doing nothing to cut crime. And the list could go on.
This is why a person’s sexual orientation does not bother me one bit. There is too much more important issues to focus on that if not addressed will affect our children and childrens children’s to come.
If the general public leave people’s business alone and put that microscope on real issues, the world would be a better place for us today.