NYC NOW - August 17, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

The federal government is trying to deport a Queens man to Haiti, a country he's never been to, because of a crime he was convicted of thirty-one years ago. For several years, WNYC’s Matt Katz has been following the story of Pascal Carpenter, known as Skahoure, who is now appealing an order to deport him after fifty-one years in the U-S. Also, a new temporary exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden is walking visitors through the long history of mind-altering plants. We’ll hear from Joanna Groarke, the Vice President for Exhibitions and Programming at the New York Botanical Garden

Good evening and welcome to NYC Dow. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. The federal government is trying to deport a Queensman to Haiti, a country he's never been to, because of a crime he was convicted of 31 years ago. For several years, WNYC's MacCats has been following the story of Pascal Carpenter, known as Shakori, who is now appealing in order to deport him after 51 years in the U.S. On the Monday after July 4th weekend in 2020, armed immigration officers arrived at Shikori's house in Queens Village. His fiancé, Natalie Saccard, remembers the moment she answered the door.

Having 10 ice cops just coming to a house, waking him up 6 o'clock in the morning, saying that he's being arrested and he's considered deportable to a country that he's never been. Natalie spoke a few months after Shikori's arrest in the fall of 2020. So it's been rough. It's a nightmare. Still so real to both of us, actually. When ICE arrested him, Shikori had been free for five years following a 25-year prison sentence. He did that time for acting as an unarmed lookout during a 1990 robbery that turned deadly. Now, at 48, immigration and customs enforcement was trying to deport him to Haiti because of his felony record. Thing is, Shikori was not born in Haiti, but on a U.S. military base in West Germany. Plus, Shikori's parents are U.S. citizens.

Still, Shikori spent seven and a half months in immigration detention at the Bergen County Jail in New Jersey. Those seven months were just literally grueling. I didn't realize I had that much moisture in my body to cry as much as I did. Shikori was released from ICE in 2021, but since then, he's worn a chunky ankle monitor so ICE can track him. Ice says he's not a citizen, and any non-citizen with a criminalized... record can be detained and deported. And last year, an immigration judge agreed, citing a lack of documents proving Shakori got his citizenship through his parents, and a legal precedent that someone born on a U.S. military base is not automatically a citizen. Our arguments are number one that he's a citizen.

Nancy Morowitz and a team from the NYU Immigration Rights Clinic are appealing, and a ruling from a board at the Justice Department could come at any time. She says, Corey's father enlisted in the Air Force during the Vietnam War as an immigrant from Haiti. He then naturalized as a citizen at boot camp, which was common for immigrant enlistees during the war. He was stationed in West Germany with his wife, where Shikori was born. Yet the government doesn't believe that makes Shikori a citizen. The government is basically saying that when somebody is serving in the military, his spouse came with him to Germany, and, you know, that when they have a child, that child has no

nationality. That is a very bizarre proposition. But the U.S. does sometimes deport citizens. An investigation from the government accountability office found that ICE deported 70 potential U.S. citizens during a recent five-year period. Children of immigrants like Shikori and those born outside of the country, also like Shikori, are most vulnerable. Shikori has been in New York since his family moved to Queens from the base when he was three months old. His immigration status was only first questioned when he was in his late 40s, when then President Trump prioritized deporting non-citizens with criminal records. I did a long stretch for a homicide I did not commit that I had no knowledge of,

had no intent. Shikori's crime took place during a notorious mugging turned stabbing death of a tourist on the subway in 1990. Shikori was not accused of the killing and says he wasn't even known. nearby. But under New York law, if someone is killed during a robbery, everyone involved in that crime can be charged with felony murder. That's how he and five others were convicted at the peak of the tough on crime era. I feel like I'm being stung twice by the same system because of these draconian laws that work simply on technicalities, where facts, don't matter. Only the literal letter of the law.

His ordeal has attracted support from activists like Imam Ibadwali, who spoke at an online rally for Shikori back in 2020. Only knows Duncan Donuts and Pizza Hutts because he grew up in America, doesn't have any other place, doesn't know any other home except for this country, to be deported to a country that he's not even familiar, doesn't speak the language. This is beyond oppression. Prison, Shikori earned multiple degrees and certificates, and after his release in 2015, he founded a nonprofit doing media training without risk youth. He also became an entrepreneur, starting video production and technology companies. All that halted when ICE arrested him.

I would describe this system as nothing more than a demographic conveyor belt to capture and exhumed people who fit a certain criteria that a group of people in power deem as unworthy, unwanted, un-American. Now, as Shakori's appeal is reviewed by federal judges, he's back home in Queens with his fiance. They're raising two children together. And as he tries to get a new company off the ground, he wears baggy pants to business meetings to cover up his ankle monitor. It's a reminder that as a spokesperson for ICE told me, as far as the U.S. government is concerned, Shakuri is a convicted felon and a national of Haiti.

Matt Katz, WNYC News. Stick around. There's more after the break. From the coffee shop to the shaman's hut to the dispensary, mind-altering plants are everywhere. Now a new temporary exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden is walking visitors through their long, history. Joanna Grork is the vice president for exhibitions and programming at the New York Botanical Garden. We find the ways in which plants are useful to us as medicine, for spiritual enlightenment, for recreation, endlessly interesting. And I think, too, that we don't necessarily realize how many are part of our daily lives. Most people use coffee and tea to start their

mornings with caffeine. The coca plant from South America, America is processed to make cocaine. But Dr. Michael Baylick, the Gardens VP of Botanical Science, says there are dozens more like the Kava plant. It's a remarkable plant because it has the ability to suspend anxiety. And one thing you know that if you're trying to resolve a conflict and you suspend anxiety, it's much easier to resolve that. Using mind-altering substances for recreation in some ways is becoming less taboo.

But Baylick says that's not the ultimate. only way things are changing. We've seen it sort of go from indigenous cultures to popular culture to a lot of really good medical research that's now going on. So I find it a very exciting time. And as visitors to the garden learn more about these plants, the garden staff hopes to learn more from the visitors. Mind-altering plants is a temporary installment through the garden's exhibit lab initiative. The garden says they'll use what they learn from attendees this time around to teach future visitors even more about mind-altering plants. The exhibit runs through August 20th. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day. We'll be back tomorrow.