Another Consequence of Traffic Stops: Deportation
Police pulled over a Haitian green card holder 20 years ago. He’s facing deportation today.
Traffic enforcement has been cause for concern among criminal justice reform advocates because it can escalate into violence. It can also lead to deportation, even for immigrants with green cards.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergIn May 2002, Roland Sylvain was pulled over by police while driving through Hanover County, Virginia, on his way to Florida. He didn’t know it at the time, but the traffic-related convictions that followed would derail his life, threatening the Haitian immigrant with deportation 20 years later.
Traffic stops are among the most likely sites of interaction between the public and law enforcement. The shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright by a white police officer in Minneapolis this April refocused attention on how disastrous the consequences of such interactions can be, particularly for Black Americans. If the person is an immigrant — with papers or without — these stops come with yet another potential repercussion: deportation.