Deported to the Wrong Country—For a Crime He May Not Have Committed
Cruel and inept.
A longtime legal resident of the United States may have been deported to the wrong country for a crime he didn’t commit—all due to what a foreign court has determined could be a case of mistaken identity.
Ilir Hope, a 52-year-old citizen of Albania and a 16-year lawful permanent resident of the United States, was deported in October 2018 after ICE sought his removal for a decade-old drug trafficking conviction in Italy. But after his deportation to Italy instead of his native Albania, Hope was released from jail—because, it turns out, he may not have committed a crime at all.
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