Legal immigrant freed after being detained 2 years in York County Prison

At 5:27 p.m. Tuesday, a white Dodge Caravan pulled up to the curb outside the entrance to the immigration detention wing of the York County Prison.

Grace Kuria ran toward the van as the back door opened and her boyfriend, Sammy Gichuhi, stepped out.

Gichuhi and Kuria embraced, tears in their eyes.

It had been nearly two years since Gichuhi had been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, two years away from his friends and family, for reasons that, to those not acquainted with the byzantine nature of the immigration legal system, appear not to make any logical sense.

He had entered this country from his native Kenya legally 17 years ago and had gone to school, got married and settled into a life in America.

Then, because of what Gichuhi describes as a paperwork error, which the government interpreted as a willful attempt to mislead immigration officials, he was detained and put in jail as his case wound through the courts.

Twice, he won in court, earning his release. Both times, the government appealed those decisions, and while the appeals were pending, he remained in jail.

Now he was out, after an immigration judge, at the direction of a federal judge, granted him bail.

He stepped from the van, wearing a lime-green, button-down shirt and black slacks and carrying his belongings in two paper grocery sacks, and hugged the members of his family who have been waiting for this day for nearly two years.

“Thank you for not giving up on me,” Gichuhi said as he hugged his family. “Thank you.”

It was the first time he has seen the sky in nearly two years, the first time he’s been outdoors. “It feels kind of weird,” he said.

The first thing he was going to do was go see his 5-year-old son, Jacob. He has spoken to Jacob on the phone while in jail, but he hasn’t seen him since he was 3. And then, he said, he just wanted to sit down and sip a soda.

The case has, as the judge acknowledged, a lengthy and complicated history, even by immigration court standards.

It all began with Gichuhi, now 50, legally entering the country on Dec. 8, 2001. He went to school to be a licensed practical nurse, got married and applied for his green card. He and his wife eventually separated, and when he was seeking citizenship, he stated that he was married on a naturalization form. He also listed two children that he had not previously listed on immigration forms; he said when he first applied for his green card, he wasn’t aware that the children existed and was unsure whether he was their father, something he is still not completely sure about since no paternity tests have been done.

ICE viewed that as marriage fraud and filed that charge against Gichuhi. But the case fell apart because his wife – she is still his wife; although they remain separated, she hasn’t divorced him – was deemed to be an unreliable witness. Instead, the government charged him with falsifying a government document. Gichuhi pleaded guilty, paid a $500 fine and served a year’s probation.

Then, in July 2016, when he was returning to the United States after visiting his ailing mother in Kenya, he was detained at the Dulles airport in Virginia. His old charge required him to report to the ICE office in Philadelphia within 30 days. He did and was told to come back with further documentation. He returned and was told to return again in 30 days.

On Sept. 16, 2016, when he reported to the ICE office in Philadelphia, he was detained and sent to the York County Prison, the government arguing that since he had misrepresented facts on his green card application, he was not eligible to re-enter the country. The government said the misrepresentation was evidence that he had committed marriage fraud, even though the evidence cited was hearsay and he had never been convicted of that offense.

He had been in York County Prison since then.

The case wound its way through immigration court. Initially, a judge ordered that he be released and that the order to deport him be withdrawn. The government appealed that decision and the Board of Immigration Appeals ordered the judge to reverse his decision, which he did. 

Meanwhile, Gichuhi took his case to federal court. A federal magistrate ordered the government to give him a bail hearing, citing the length of his detention and the nature of the government’s case against him. ICE appealed that ruling and Gichuhi remained in jail.

While he was incarcerated, he had been assaulted by another prisoner and suffered a concussion and damage to his left eye.

Last Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Malachy Mannion ordered ICE to grant Gichuhi a bail hearing, citing the length of his incarceration, which at that point was about three weeks shy of two years, and other factors. The judge further ordered that it was up to the government to show that he was either a danger to the community or a flight risk should he be released.

ICE Assistant Chief Counsel Mary Ellen Withrow conceded that Gichuhi did not pose a danger to the community. The only blemish on his record is the falsifying charge, and he had paid the fine and successfully completed probation. His lawyer, Rosina Stambaugh, pointed out that other than that, he has had not so much as a traffic ticket.

The government argued that he might be a flight risk because he remains under a deportation order. However, that order is under appeal to the U.S. Third Circuit Court and is long from being resolved.

Stambaugh noted that Gichuhi, before his incarceration, had never failed to appear at any immigration or court date. “He understands that he may lose (at the Third Circuit) and will have to back,” Stambaugh said. If that happens, she said, “He will go back.”

Immigration Judge Kuyomars “Q” Golparvar noted that Gichuhi had a good employment record – he was working as a nursing supervisor at a nursing home in Middletown prior to his incarceration. The judge also said Gichuhi has support in the community – 10 friends and supporters were in the gallery of the tiny courtroom in the prison’s immigration wing.

Golparvar also noted that one of Gichuhi’s sons, Jacob, 5, is a U.S. citizen by virtue of being born in the United States. (His son was born prematurely and continues to have health problems, and before his detention, Gichuhi was his primary caregiver, given his nursing background.)

The judge set the bond at $10,000.

When the decision was announced, Gichuhi wept, dabbing at his eyes with a tissue plucked from a Spongebob box of Kleenex on the defense table.

“The fight is not done yet,” Gichuhi said outside the prison.

And it isn’t just his fight, he said. “We still have a lot of people in there who have been in immigration detention for two years, three years, separated from their children and their families,” he said. “We just have to keep on fighting.”

And even though the government kept him in prison for nearly two years for inexplicable reasons, he still believes in America.

“I don’t take for granted what America has given to me,” he said, “the opportunities that America has given to me.”

As he and his family stood outside the prison doors, Kuria handed him her iPhone. It was his mother – on the phone from Nairobi.

“Your boy is free now,” he said to her, tears streaming down his cheeks.