Calling for a Chance to Come Home for deported people
National Immigrant Justice Center
Human rights org providing legal services to & advocating for immigrants through policy reform, litigation & education.
By Nayna Gupta, NIJC Associate Director of Policy
This spring the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), along with members of Congress, unjustly deported immigrants and their family members, and immigrant rights advocates, launched Chance to Come Home, a campaign calling on the Biden administration to create a central process for people who have been unjustly deported to make a case to return to the United States.
We kicked off this powerful campaign with a virtual event and film premiere featuring people who have been forced to leave behind their families, communities, and livelihoods as a result of deportation. The short film, produced by award-winning filmmaker Alex Rivera in partnership with NIJC, tells the stories of U.S. Navy veteran Howard Bailey and mother-of-three Vanessa Vaquiz Mendoza, who were each unjustly deported by the U.S. government.
The Chance to Come Home campaign originates from a white paper NIJC released in 2021 providing a roadmap for the Biden administration to bring home unjustly deported individuals by using existing laws. Since the paper’s release, six of 11 people featured in the paper have returned to the United States and reunited with their families.
Mr. Bailey, deported for a decades-old marijuana conviction after serving in the U.S. Navy, was among the people featured in the paper. More than ten years after Mr. Bailey was forced to leave the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) granted him the opportunity to return home thanks to the Chance to Come Home campaign and a decade of advocacy. Weeks after our campaign launch, we celebrated again: this time, to welcome Mr. Bailey as a U.S. citizen. Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak, who wrote about Mr. Bailey when he returned to the United States in 2022, joined him and his family at the Virginia courthouse where he took his naturalization oath, and published a poignant account of his journey.
But Ms. Vaquiz Mendoza and many others are still waiting for their chance. We’re grateful for the growing community of advocates and members of Congress who are speaking out to support them. In June, campaign partners from the Neighborhood Defender Service published an op-ed in The New York Times about how marijuana sentencing reforms have failed to prevent unjust consequences for immigrants, including Leonel Pinilla, another deported advocate who inspired and helped us launch this campaign.
Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Alex Padilla of California, along with House Representatives Emanuel Cleaver and Adriano Espaillat strongly endorsed the Chance to Come Home campaign during our launch, and since then another 60 members of Congress and more than 100 nongovernmental organizations have sent letters to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas calling on the administration to offer unjustly deported people a system to seek a chance to return to the United States.
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Just last week, we once again amplified Chance to Come Home at the annual Netroots Nation convening of elected officials, activists and progressives from around the country. Hector Barajas founder of the deported veterans movement and Congressman Chuy Garcia who represents Illinois’s Fourth Congressional District joined us in calling for a central process to give the unjustly deported a Chance to Come Home.
NIJC Associate Director of Policy Nayna Gupta, founder of the deported veterans movement Hector Barajas, organizer and advocate Xanat Sobrevilla, Representative Jesús "Chuy" Garcia, and filmmaker Alex Rivera at Netroots Nation.
You too can be an essential part of the Chance to Come Home movement.
Visit the Chance to Come Home campaign page where you can:
Thank you for supporting countless people living in exile in their fight for a #ChanceToComeHome.