WHEREAS, Ms. Jiang had been allowed to report routinely for years to an immigration office in Philadelphia until Tuesday, February 7, 2006 at 9 am, when her deportation was ordered for procedural reasons because she missed filing deadlines; and
WHEREAS, During her routine appointment, the immigration agent told Ms. Jiang that she was in the United States illegally and would be deported immediately; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Jiang was hustled out of the immigration office into a waiting van that drove her to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to be placed on a flight to China; and
WHEREAS, At the time of reporting to the immigration office in Philadelphia on February 7, she was over 3 months pregnant with twins; and
WHEREAS, In the process of being deported, Ms. Jiang alleges that she was pushed into a minivan, causing bruising to her abdomen and drove to Kennedy Airport; and
WHEREAS, On the way to New York, Ms. Jiang repeatedly told the agents that she felt pain and needed medical attention. Her pleas were ignored until late in the afternoon, when she was finally taken by ambulance to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens where doctors found that both fetuses had died; and
WHEREAS, No one disputes that under immigration law, Ms. Jiang could have been deported at any time after 2002 when she exhausted her appeals on the denial of her application for political asylum on the ground of China’s one-child policy. However, Jimmy Chang, president of the Philadelphia Chinese-American Association, stated that he had never heard of deportation happening to a pregnant woman; and
WHEREAS, After two nights in the New York hospital, Ms. Jiang returned to her husband and two sons in Philadelphia; and
WHEREAS, The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has said that efforts to deport Ms. Jiang would resume once she was cleared by medical officials; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That we hereby memorialize Council’s opposition to the treatment of Zhenxing Jiang, a pregnant Chinese woman living in Philadelphia, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers while forcibly trying to deport her from Philadelphia.
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