Date: January 22nd, 2018 12:54 PM
Author: Charismatic shrine
Even as the issue of immigration has been central to the government shutdown in Washington, a respected doctor at Kalamazoo’s Bronson Methodist Hospital who has been living in America for nearly 40 years finds himself in jail after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took him from his home in handcuffs.
Lukasz Niec is an internal medicine doctor putting in long hours as a hospitalist for Bronson. His co-workers describe him as the model of what a physician should be.
And now, he is sitting in a jail cell in Calhoun County with no idea of when — or if — he will be free to return to his patients and his family.
“In 1979, my parents were both doctors left Poland and took two suitcases and two small children, my brother was five and I was six and they came here for a better life for their kids,” said Iwona Niec-Villaire Saturday as she sat next to her sister-in-law.
Now, the siblings are in their mid-40s, she is an attorney, he is a doctor — they have been in America for four decades on a permanent green card.
“He doesn’t even speak Polish,” Niec-Villaire said.
On Tuesday, as Niec was enjoying a day off with his tween girls at his home on the lake in this exclusive neighborhood near Kalamazoo, three ICE officers came to his home, told him he was being taken into custody and took him to jail.
“The question I get asked all the time is ‘Why do you think this happened?’ I just really don’t know,” said Niec-Villaire.
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The only spot on Niec’s record is two misdemeanor convictions when he was 17, one for destruction of property less than $100 and receiving and concealing stolen goods.
He pleaded to these charges more than 25 years ago under the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act that allows young first offenders to avoid a criminal record if they never offend again.
But ICE — a federal agency — does not honor that state plea agreement, something Niec did not know when he took the plea, according to family.
“These misdemeanors were just an adolescent making mistakes and learning from them,” Niec-Villaire said.
She said she and her brother are as American as anyone can be.
“He cannot back to Poland, a country he doesn’t know, he has no family at, both our parents passed away in the United States, he doesn’t know anyone, he wouldn’t know where to go,” Niec-Villaire said.
http://woodtv.com/2018/01/20/kzoo-doctor-detained-by-ice-after-40-years-in-us/
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3867371&forum_id=2#35209940)