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Rapist ordered deported
Tuesday, January 6, 2004
By GREGG HERRINGTON, Columbian staff writer
PORTLAND -- A Vancouver man convicted in 1986 of rape lost his bid Monday to stay in his adopted country and was ordered deported to his native Tonga in the South Pacific.
Sione Telifia Afu, 54, fought back tears after Department of Justice Immigration Judge Michael Bennett declared, "I have no other choice under the law than to order you removed to Tonga."
Afu, of 3220 Kauffman Ave., was arrested Nov. 8 at his job at a meat packing plant in Boring, Ore., where friends say he had worked for years.
He was one of nine Clark County noncitizen residents rounded up between Nov. 18 and Dec. 5 as part of Operation Predator by agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Homeland Security Department.
He was the first of them to be deported.
"ICE is committed to the identification, investigation and removal of sexual predators from our streets," the agency said in a Dec. 10 statement. Most of the men arrested had prior convictions for rape of a child, sexual abuse, incest or indecent liberties.
Noncitizens can lose the privilege of residing in this country if convicted of a major crime.
Operation Predator, launched last summer, stepped up the effort to find and deport aliens convicted of sex crimes.
Through an interpreter, Afu told Judge Bennett Monday that he would not appeal, thereby facing almost immediate deportation to Tonga.
He had appeared before Bennett in early December and said he wanted a month to try to find an attorney, but was unsuccessful and had no counsel Monday.
Afu, like other detainees in the hearing room, wore leg irons. Large red letters on the back of his faded denim jail-issue shirt was marked, "Yamhill Co. Jail."
He has been incarcerated in that McMinnville, Ore., facility since his arrest.
Watching in the small hearing room in the old U.S. Post Office building near Union Station were a woman who described herself as Afu's "significant other" and her younger woman friend. Each asked to remain unnamed.
"He's the sweetest guy," said the younger woman. "He hasn't been in trouble in 17 years. It's a long time to be brought back on a crime. He's already served his time for it."
The tearful older woman said she hopes to see Afu at least one last time, at the airport when he is on his way out of the country.
By GREGG HERRINGTON, Columbian staff writer
PORTLAND -- A Vancouver man convicted in 1986 of rape lost his bid Monday to stay in his adopted country and was ordered deported to his native Tonga in the South Pacific.
Sione Telifia Afu, 54, fought back tears after Department of Justice Immigration Judge Michael Bennett declared, "I have no other choice under the law than to order you removed to Tonga."
Afu, of 3220 Kauffman Ave., was arrested Nov. 8 at his job at a meat packing plant in Boring, Ore., where friends say he had worked for years.
He was one of nine Clark County noncitizen residents rounded up between Nov. 18 and Dec. 5 as part of Operation Predator by agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Homeland Security Department.
He was the first of them to be deported.
"ICE is committed to the identification, investigation and removal of sexual predators from our streets," the agency said in a Dec. 10 statement. Most of the men arrested had prior convictions for rape of a child, sexual abuse, incest or indecent liberties.
Noncitizens can lose the privilege of residing in this country if convicted of a major crime.
Operation Predator, launched last summer, stepped up the effort to find and deport aliens convicted of sex crimes.
Through an interpreter, Afu told Judge Bennett Monday that he would not appeal, thereby facing almost immediate deportation to Tonga.
He had appeared before Bennett in early December and said he wanted a month to try to find an attorney, but was unsuccessful and had no counsel Monday.
Afu, like other detainees in the hearing room, wore leg irons. Large red letters on the back of his faded denim jail-issue shirt was marked, "Yamhill Co. Jail."
He has been incarcerated in that McMinnville, Ore., facility since his arrest.
Watching in the small hearing room in the old U.S. Post Office building near Union Station were a woman who described herself as Afu's "significant other" and her younger woman friend. Each asked to remain unnamed.
"He's the sweetest guy," said the younger woman. "He hasn't been in trouble in 17 years. It's a long time to be brought back on a crime. He's already served his time for it."
The tearful older woman said she hopes to see Afu at least one last time, at the airport when he is on his way out of the country.
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