Poor Sebastian Pineda - A judge's decision dashes an (ILLEGAL BEANER'S) immigrant's hope for deportation reprieve

A Chicago judge denied an immigration prosecutor’s request last week for an “administrative closure” of a deportation proceeding against Sebastian Pineda, a Mexican immigrant whose case was chronicled by The Chicago Reporter in August.
The decision threw a wrench into the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s stuttering effort to carry out a 2011 directive by John Morton, the agency’s director, that urged the use of “prosecutorial discretion” to focus on deporting dangerous felons and less on minor offenders who pose no threat.
Under Morton’s policy, immigrants who have strong family ties to this country and no serious criminal background could get a reprieve from deportation. On Tuesday, Pineda, a 31-year-old father of two U.S.-born children, was hopeful; prior to that morning’s hearing, the prosecutor had agreed to seek an “administrative closure” that would have suspended his deportation case.
But immigration judge Craig M. Zerbe had other ideas. “It’s an arbitrary decision, and I will not agree with it,” he said, denying the prosecutor’s motion.
After the hearing, Pineda and his family met with U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s staff in his Chicago office. “Our immigration system is not supposed to work like this, and neither is prosecutorial discretion,” Gutierrez said in a written statement about Pineda’s case. “I will be looking into this case to see if there is anything the lawyer or the [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] lawyer can do to prevent the deportation of a breadwinner supporting his family and U.S. citizen children.”

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