Robert Panton emigrated from Jamaica to Harlem, New York at four-years-old. He spent 30 years in prison due to 90s-era mandatory sentence enhancements for drug convictions. Today, that sentence would be around six years.
But the day Panton finally left prison, ICE was waiting for him. His right to continue legal residency was revoked.
After nine months in ICE detention, this grandfather, mentor, and community leader was released. Yet, three years later came another demand: his deportation.
“Our legal system has something called ‘double jeopardy,’ you can’t be punished twice for the same crime,” Panton analogized. “Because I am an immigrant, I’m being punished again and again.”
The phrase “double jeopardy” exists in Frances Beal’s Black feminist theory, too. Anti-Blackness intersects and develops through other marginalized experiences further criminalized by the system.
In Panton’s case, it’s his Caribbean immigrant identity.
Today, anti-Black xenophobia puts Black immigrants at disproportionate risk for deportation, solitary confinement, asylum rejection, and abuse-related hotline calls despite being only 6% of the ICE detention population.
The criminal legal system, including ICE, criminalizes us for what we “do” and who we are. The fight for the collective liberation of those in jeopardy continues.
To advocate for Panton’s freedom, you can sign the National Immigrant Justice Center’s petition to stop his deportation at this link: https://pushblack.news/63v.