A 9/11 recovery worker facing imminent deportation for a nonviolent conviction from over 25 years ago has received a pardon from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, an important step that advocates hope will help keep him in the country after 30 years here.
Despite the fact that Carlos Humberto Cardona suffers from respiratory issues due to his recovery work and has not been in trouble since his 1990 drug conviction, the Trump administration has decided this 9/11 worker is a threat and should be torn from his U.S. citizen wife and teen daughter. Cardona was “detained because of a rash, ultra-conservative” immigration policy, Cuomo tweeted in issuing the drug pardon:
Cuomo, a Democrat, said that if Carlos Cardona is deported he might not be able to receive adequate health treatments for ailments he suffers after working in the Sept. 11, 2001, recovery effort.
“In the more than 30 years since Carlos Cardona has lived in this country, he has built a family and given back to his community, including in the aftermath of 9/11 when he assisted with ground zero recovery efforts at the expense of his own health,” Cuomo said. “It is my hope this action will not only reunite Mr. Cardona with his wife and daughter but also send a message about the values of fairness and equality that New York was founded upon.”
"Mr. Cardona is deserving of our thanks—not the cold shoulder," Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) wrote in his letter calling on DHS Sec. John Kelly and acting ICE Director Thomas Homan to halt Cardona’s deportation. “Deporting Mr. Cardona would send a chilling message not just to the immigrants who call our country home,” wrote Rep. Crowley, “but to all who would help when their country calls on them. This is not what the United States represents.”
Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) told Univision that when Cardona went to ground zero to help, “ICE wasn’t there, immigration wasn’t there to ask for papers and ask, ‘Are you legal or illegal? You can’t help us in rescuing our fellow human beings.’ We need to keep mobilizing, we keep have to showing up when there’s a protest.”
Cardona is one of the latest victims of ICE’s “silent raids,” undocumented immigrants who follow the rules by regularly checking in with the federal immigration agency and are suddenly taken into custody. “In disturbing case after disturbing case, we are seeing versions of the same pattern,” noted one immigrant rights group last month, “ICE is targeting immigrants who are the easiest to find immigrants and lowest priority.” And in this case, a patriotic undocumented American who put his health—and future—on the line in order to help his nation.
“This man is not a symbol or an example,” said a New York Daily News editorial. “He is a husband and a father whose family deserves better. Who now, in the eyes of the law, has no criminal record. Mr. President, see his humanity. Exercise sensible discretion. Let Carlos Cardona stay.”