...after being wrongly deported.
Mark Daniel Lyttle, 31, is mentally handicapped, suffers from mental problems, requires insulin for type II diabetes and has depended on others to care for him his entire life. A U.S. Citizen, he was wrongly determined to be a Mexican, deported to Mexico, and left to fend for his survival in a foreign land with no medication, no knowledge of Spanish, and about five to ten pesos. And, following a perilous journey that consisted of wandering in Mexico, Nicaragua and Guatemala and jail time in Honduras, he’s back and he’s upset.
Ya think?
“It’s very traumatizing and it’s very infuriating. I lost all respect for my own country. I’m not perfect, but I didn’t deserve that.” Mark told BNO News. “They’re supposed to be looking out for Americans and they totally didn’t look out for me.”
The Deportation
It all started sometime after July in 2007 when he was charged with misdemeanor of assault on a female for inappropriately touching a female employee at Glencare Assisted Living, a half way house in Holly Ridge, North Carolina. He stayed in the New Hanover Correctional Center in the Wilmington, North Carolina area and after serving 85 days out of a 100-day sentence, he was supposed to be released early on October 16, 2008 for good behavior. That didn’t happen.Instead, he was turned over to Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) on October 16, 2008. He claims that a woman who worked for the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told him that he was a Mexican citizen by the name of Jose Thomas (possibly Jose Tomas).
WTF?
I usually roll my eyes at anyone who uses the phrase "immigration reform", but we definitely need to reform whatever part of the immigration system was responsible for this.
