Virtual Ministry Archive

BREAKING🚨 ICE deported Kwesi Menezes, a green card holder with schizophrenia, to Guyana in April—he died there four months later after overdosing on his medication. Kwesi Menezes grew up in Burlington County, New Jersey, and his family says he spent years moving between mental health facilities and jail. He served time in the county jail for assaulting a police officer during what his relatives describe as a mental health episode. After his release he was jailed again for violating probation. In November, his family was told he had been moved into ICE detention. In December, the Department of Homeland Security put his name on a public list it calls "Worst of the Worst Criminal Aliens Arrested." NBC10 Philadelphia's Miguel Martinez-Valle first reported this story. "They painted a picture like he was just somebody, this criminal that just did all these terrible things, but he was struggling with mental illness," his sister, Shane Menezes Banjo, said. His mother, Sharon Menezes, put it this way: "His mental health, he's struggling to even to comprehend what's going on. How inhumane and then label him a criminal and you don't know him." He was deported in April. He died on August 30, after overdosing on his schizophrenia medication, according to his family. His sister learned of it on a Sunday morning. The family says the assault charges were used to start removal proceedings against a man who held a green card. Renata Castro, a longtime immigration attorney, described what she is seeing now: "When we're looking at immigration today, the rule is: Show me the crime and I'll find you the man." She called the approach draconian and overreaching. DHS has not responded to questions about his case. The same agency reported nearly 51,000 ICE arrests in August alone.