Houston Texans linebacker Neville Hewitt blasted immigration officials after his mother was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement when she returned to the US for a deportation hearing.
Hewitt’s mother, Deon Jones, 47, spent nine years in a Georgia state prison after the car she was traveling in was found with 40 grams of cocaine and some marijuana in the trunk, prompting her deportation to Jamaica in 2017, the Daily Beast reported.
As Hewitt, 30, prepared for Texas’ AFC Divisional playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens, his mother flew from Jamaica to Atlanta to prepare for an immigration hearing — one of his attorneys Benjamin Osorio argued would allow Jones to be released with an ankle monitor .
However, when Jones’ plane landed, he was immediately detained by ICE officers, who took his phone as he texted his son informing him of the issue.
NFL player Neville Hewitt blasted immigration officials after his mother was detained by ICE ahead of Saturday’s playoffs. Neville Hewitt / Instagram
“This is what is happening in our country. And most of us, we don’t realize that this is actually happening,” said Hewitt, 30. “It’s been going on for years.”
His mother, who never saw him play professional ball, would “love to go crazy in the stands,” he told the outlet.
“I don’t care where you’re from or who you are, it’s going to drive you crazy knowing that you’re locked up and you have no idea why, and what’s going on with you,” Hewitt said. “You have no explanation. It’s confusing.”
Hewitt was just 14 years old and just starting his football journey when his mother sent him back to Jamaica, where he stayed until he was 12 years old.
The football player said he knew something was wrong when he didn’t see him after a high school football game, describing the realization he had as “heartbreaking.”
After his mother went to jail, Hewitt and his 28-year-old younger brother Horace lived with her boyfriend, who didn’t pay his bills and left the boy to shower and eat at school.
“What I get in school is what I eat,” Hewitt said.
In 2017 Jones got parole, but immigration authorities detained him.
Neville Hewitt and his wife. Hewitt said his mother has yet to see him play professional ball in person. Neville Hewitt / Instagram
She spent a year and a half in the Irwin County Detention Center—a facility closed to women after gynecologists there were found to have performed unnecessary hysterectomies on inmates. Things became so stressful for Jones that he stopped eating and started losing his hair before he agreed to be deported.
While in Jamacia his lawyer argued his arrest should not have made his deportation mandatory and ultimately secured him a new trial, at which he would have to appear in person.
Osario said ICE led him to believe Jones would be placed under house arrest with an ankle monitor upon his return, allowing him to reunite with his son and watch him play in the NFL.
Hewitt said her mother would never have boarded the plane if she thought she would be detained immediately. Neville Hewitt / Instagram
“They showed us that everything has been prepared for approval regarding the alternative to detention and they are just waiting for the supervisor to sign off on it,” he said.
Hewitt said her mother would never have boarded the plane if she thought there was a chance she would be detained.
“You don’t have someone getting on a plane to go into a prison,” he said. “Nobody’s going to go for that.”
Hewitt’s mother wasn’t there in person to cheer him on Saturday when the Texans lost to the Ravens 34-10, but she was able to talk to him on the phone.
“I was like, ‘I’m OK. This thing they’re making you go through is not,'” she recalled.
Jones is currently being held at the Stewart Detention Center, a facility two hours outside Atlanta that his attorney described as “worse than prison.”
“When you are detained by immigration, you eat and only sleep. There’s not much you can do. You just sit there with your mind,” Osorio said.
Jones was deported to Jamaica, where he lived until he was 12 years old. Neville Hewitt / Instagram
Osorio added, “It’s hard to see him have to go through it again and just try to keep it mentally.”
Hewitt said he has repeatedly tried to contact Stewart to ask about visits but has not been able to get through to see his mother.
“It’s like we’re looking back at something we’ve been through,” he said.
“We’re past this point and it’s like all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we’re back to square one.”
Osorio said Jones will likely appear before a judge in February, but he may not be able to get a trial for several months. If he wins, the government may file an appeal, which could drag out the case even longer.
If he can win in court, his lawyer believes he has a chance of getting a green card.
“I was nervous that he was going to drop everything and come back, and then that was it,” Osorio said. “Because he’s been incarcerated for so long and then has now been free for a couple of years, and then went back to detention, I understand it’s probably not a good place for him mentally.”
ICE and the US State Department did not respond to requests for comment.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
