Pennsauken man's longtime fight ends in deportation

Fidel Napier, a Pennsauken man from Jamaica who was targeted for deportation because of a 1998 drug conviction, was forced to return to his native country Thursday, his wife said.

Napier, who grew up in Camden, was flown to Jamaica by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, said his wife, Kiyonna. Since May, the family had been working to try to prevent his deportation by submitting letters from community members on his behalf, asking local political leaders for help, and appealing to federal authorities.

"We did everything we could think of to stop it from happening," Kiyonna Napier said. "They still did it anyway."

Napier is being held by authorities in Jamaica until someone comes to pick him up, his wife said. Her husband's aunt is making plans to travel from the United States to Jamaica to bring him clothes and money and help him find a place to live. He has no friends, family, or contacts there, she said.

An April article in The Inquirer detailed Napier's fight to remain in the U.S. after he became a target for deportation five years ago. Now 37, he came to the U.S. at age 5. At 20, he pleaded guilty to selling cocaine - an arrest he says was a wake-up call. He completed a drug program, served no prison time, and went on to build a career and marry his high school sweetheart, with whom he has three children.

In 2010, Homeland Security agents arrested Napier at the manufacturing company where he worked. Policies enacted under the Obama administration's focus on removing felons and repeat offenders from the country, and his felony conviction, made Napier a high-priority deportation candidate. It is unclear when Napier came to the department's attention or why he was not targeted until 12 years after his plea.

Napier has said he was unaware that the 1998 plea could jeopardize his status in the country or that his lawyer at the time did not know he was not a U.S. citizen. He has appealed the deportation decision without success, arguing in one filing that his stepfather had helped Camden police and federal agents make arrests of Jamaican-born gang members in Camden, and that a return to that country could put his life at risk.

Napier was detained by Homeland Security agents in May and taken to Newark, N.J. His wife and children had been visiting him ever since, until earlier this month, when he was transferred to a facility in Louisiana to prepare him for deportation, his wife said.

Kiyonna Napier said Thursday that her husband's lawyer was applying for a U visa, which can be granted to victims of crimes. Napier was shot and injured at age 15 when he was near a shootout in Camden, she said, and the bullet is still lodged in his back. Though the application could take a year or more, Napier has a chance of qualifying for the program, she said.

The stress has caused her to suffer migraines and sleepless nights, and lose her appetite, she said. She has lost her job as a lab technician. Their 16- and 12-year-old daughters and 7-year-old son miss their father, she said, and she is struggling to pay the bills.

"There are people who kill people, and they're allowed to walk the streets after they go to prison," she said. "It just doesn't seem fair."