Resident aims to break deportee cycle

Brian Lynch wants a bicycle helmet to put a lid on what has easily been the worst period of his 39 years.

He plans to don the helmet and ride the red bicycle, which is now in his room at Maureen's Place, Windward Road, St Andrew, to the HEART/NTA facility on Marcus Garvey Drive as soon as he is accepted for a data-processing course there. And as he goes back and forth on his own steam, Lynch intends to turn the wheels of his life himself for the first time in nearly three years.

Lynch went to New York City, United States, with his mother on July 5, 1989, and stayed there illegally. He came back to Jamaica on June 20, 2008, as a deportee. It was the first time he returned to Jamaica since he left at 18 years old.

"The time I was there, I tried to get myself legalised. They denied it three times. I could not leave the country, as you can't go back without paperwork," Lynch said.

He has acquired a strong American accent, but even after 19 years in the US, it was not enough to mask his Jamaican roots and eventually unmask him as an illegal alien.

"On February 27, 2008, I boarded a Greyhound bus in Charlotte, North Carolina, with my final destination being Houston, Texas. When the bus got to Louisiana on February 28, it was stopped in Baton Rouge where the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer boarded the bus," Lynch said.

Lynch was travelling alone and he sat in his seat as person by person, row by row, the officer asked each passenger the same question: "Where are you from?" "I guess, based on the accent, he asked a follow-up question," Lynch said.

When it was his turn, Lynch said New York, as that was where he had been living for many years. "He said 'No no, where you from?', and again I said New York. He said, 'You have an accent. Where were you born?'," Lynch recalled.

And, as he replied "Jamaica", the officer said, "I could tell".

Lynch says he lied when the officer asked if he was a citizen of the US, saying that he had applied and had got no response when he had actually been turned down since 2006. Lynch's New York driver's licence was called in and the ICE agent told him just that, asked him to sit down, and moved on to the other passengers.

Seven persons were removed from the Greyhound bus and Lynch said he slept on the floor of a jail cell that night.

Depression in Mandeville

Still, Lynch says he did not mind coming back to Jamaica as he had not wanted to stay in the US in the first place. However, with his immediate and extended family members there, at 18 years old there was no one to come back home to.

Ironically, when he was returned to Jamaica with the suddenly acquired title of 'deportee', Lynch found himself in the same position that he was in 1989 as someone newly arrived in the US - with no one to go home to. "I did not know where I was going to live and I did not want to depend on anyone. I had mixed feelings. I always wanted to come back to Jamaica, but not like this," he said. "I wanted to come back independently, so I could stand up by myself."

He knew he still had relatives in Jamaica, but did not know where. "I had to call family members in the States. They told me there was an uncle in Mandeville and he was with a grand-aunt. I went to live there, but it did not work out," he said.

Lynch stayed with them until last October when "I went to Mandeville Public Hospital and they treated me for depression. When they were ready to discharge me, I told them I had nowhere to live and no job".

That was when he learned about the Windward Road facility and went there on October 16, 2010. He was transferred to Room 2 at Maureen's Place on February 15.

"I have been making progress. I used to be over the other dorm, then the open dorm, then I was transferred here. It shows they believe in me. I did not ask to come over here; they recommended me," Lynch said.

But he does not intend to stay. "When I am finished (at HEART), despite the problems in the society, I hope that I will be able to find a job. I believe I can be a productive member of society. I consider myself a very intelligent person and I can contribute," Lynch said.

"I am just hoping now I am here I can get back into society. If I had known about Open Arms from I was here, more than likely I would have been on my own already," he said.

Lynch says he got 53 right answers from 60 questions on the HEART/NTA math entrance test, and 51 out of 60 for English. "I am a quick learner," Lynch said, pointing to the head which he needs a helmet to protect as he, hopefully, pedals towards Marcus Garvey Drive and another cycle in his life next month.

- M.C.