'You're from Canada, eh?': Meeting with 'off-duty ICE officer' at a pet store leads to Toronto man's self-deportation
A Toronto man who recently self-deported from the United States says he was told to do so after an off-duty U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer noticed his Canadian passport in his wallet at a pet store.
Henry Cortez had been living in Las Vegas for five years, but his visa had expired more than a year ago, he told National Post in an interview.
He hadn’t gotten round to renewing it. That suddenly became a problem when he went into a PetSmart in the city’s Summerlin suburb to buy supplies for his cat, Smokie.
A stranger noticed the Canadian passport he carries as identification, and joked: “You’re from Canada, eh?”
“And then after that, I paid for my stuff, and I said, hey, thanks, have a nice day. And he goes, ‘Hold on a second.’ And then he shows me his badge.”
The man, Cortez says, was “an off-duty ICE officer,” and he wanted to look at Cortez’s papers.
“And that’s when I knew that I was in trouble,” he recalls. Cortez says the officer gave him two choices: self-deport, or be detained if he was spotted again. He took the first option.
National Post has reached out to ICE for more information. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently reported that 1.6 million illegal immigrants self-deported during the first eight months of this year.
ICE also notes that it has made 585 arrests of Canadian citizens in the United States, and there have been 623 removals, which includes deportation as well as self-deportations.
A U.S. government document on self-deportation notes that: “If ICE officials arrest you, there’s no going back — you may not have time to get your affairs in order, gather your belongings, or even say goodbye to the people you care about.”
Cortez says his own self-deportation triggered “a perfect storm” of misfortune. His cat freaked out at the vet while getting the rabies shot she needed to travel . Cortez wound up bleeding. Animal control was called. Smokie the cat was put into quarantine for a week.
“Well, my flight is in like, four days, so I have to scramble, you know? And so I had to make a really, really hard decision, and I had to leave without her.”
The vet was sympathetic. Smokie could have been euthanized when her owner left the country, but they gave her a temporary place to stay. That still leaves Cortez with having to arrange a more permanent accommodation, plus transportation across the border. Thanks to his visa troubles, he’s barred from reentering the U.S. for any reason for 10 years.
“I have a friend of mine that I used to work with, hopefully she can take over,” he says. “But it’s not guaranteed right now.”
He’s looking into pet transportation services: one to get Smokie near the border with Ontario; a second to bring her across. It’s an expensive proposition — Cortaez estimates $1,800 for the first leg of the journey, and at least a couple of thousand for the second — and he’s set up a GoFundMe page in hopes of finding help. He’s hoping to raise $5,200.
Cortez, who once worked as a bouncer, is looking for work and hoping to get a position as a Canadian Border Services Agency officer trainee in Newfoundland, where his daughter lives with her mother.
“I’m not exactly in a position to get a loan right now,” he says. “I’ve had some outstanding debts and car repossession. So I have to just try to save up as much money as I can, and if there’s any remaining family members I haven’t asked yet, to reach out to them as well.”
Cortez remains in touch with the vet in Las Vegas, and he’s heard that, after a few days of not eating much and hissing at everyone, Smokie calmed down.
“She’s starting to warm up to the people (and) they’re starting to adore her a little more now,” he says. “I guess she’s kind of accepted that she’s there.”
But “there” is not a long-term solution, and Cortez dearly wants to be reunited with his pet.
“This isn’t, you know, just about a cat,” he says. “Some people may look at it that way, but it’s truly just about family, love, loyalty and just not giving up on family, even when everything falls apart.”
He continues: “She trusted me … she wouldn’t trust anybody else in that pound. And, you know, she was a rescue that nobody wanted because she was under medication and stuff, and from the very first day, she chose me. I can’t give up on her now.”
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