Some Owego residents want a local restaurant owner released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention.
Friends of Roger Huang say immigration authorities arrested him on June 16 at what he believed was a meeting about his immigration status.
Huang has been in the U.S. for over 30 years. He is the owner of a popular Chinese restaurant in Owego. Neighbors have said he’s a generous community member and devoted to his family.
Huang is being held in the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility.
In a statement to WSKG, an ICE spokesperson said Huang entered the country in 1993 using “fraudulent documents”. According to the agency, he failed to appear at his first scheduled immigration hearing. A final order was issued in 1994. Huang's final appeal to stay in the country was denied in 1995.
ICE also said Huang “has exhausted all due process and has no legal remedies left to pursue.”
Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer is a professor at the Cornell Law School who specializes in immigration law. She heads the school’s immigration law clinic.
She’s not involved with Huang’s case but WSKG asked her to analyze the ICE statement.
Kelley-Widmer said that a lot could have changed in Huang’s life since he entered the country that could affect his options.
“Someone in this situation may very well have options through family members or through a late filed Withholding of Removal Claim,” she said. “And I can’t tell on these facts, but neither can ICE.”
She said Huang faces two significant challenges.
First, is the removal or deportation order.
“With asylum,” Kelley-Widmer said, “he’s already got a removal order so it’s going to be more difficult, but he could be eligible for withholding of removal.”
But she thinks that’s unlikely under the Trump administration.
The second challenge is the fraud charge: using a fake document to enter the country. Kelley-Widmer said there are fraud waivers. But Huang needs to see a judge to ask for one.
“This is why people need the opportunity to talk with a lawyer and find out, do they actually have options?” she said.
People facing deportation have the right to an attorney, but they don’t have the right to a publicly-funded one. They have to pay the legal fees.
Later in June, ICE arrested a group of ten men, also in Tioga County. WSKG asked ICE about those cases. No one responded to our requests.