Yvonne Ba­boolal

Kathy-Ann Drakes wept pro­fuse­ly as she told how she was de­port­ed af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed of killing a man while de­fend­ing her chil­dren. Drakes, a fit and at­trac­tive 45-year-old, stepped out of the air­plane at Pi­ar­co Air­port three days af­ter Christ­mas in 2001 in­to a coun­try she does not know, she said. She lived in the US for more than 30 years. She said her de­por­ta­tion was un­fair and she yearns to re­turn "home" to a fa­mil­iar land and the peo­ple she loves. Orig­i­nal­ly from Bel­mont, she mi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States when she was six to join her moth­er, a Trinida­di­an.

Drakes, who works with a se­cu­ri­ty firm, re­lat­ed last Wednes­day how she killed the man who was her boyfriend. She con­fessed to the po­lice and the court that she com­mit­ted the mur­der while pro­tect­ing her four-year-old daugh­ter and was charged for manslaugh­ter in the first de­gree. It was 1991 and Drakes, then 28, was a nurs­ing aide stu­dent liv­ing at East 18th Street, Flat­bush Av­enue, Brook­lyn with her two daugh­ters, Si­en­na, four, and Dan­i­ca, two. Four months af­ter she met 24-year old Tim­o­thy Hawthorne, a jan­i­tor in a near­by build­ing, he start­ed beat­ing her.

"He was jeal­ous and over-pro­tec­tive. I made many re­ports to the po­lice.

"I stopped see­ing Tim and one day he burst the chain latch on the door, came in­to the apart­ment and start­ed beat­ing me. "I ran in­to the kitchen and picked up a knife and told him to get out. He re­fused and grabbed the knife from me. I grabbed the blade and sliced my hand. "I told Si­en­na to go out the door and call the po­lice. He ran af­ter her and said he was go­ing to beat her. "I couldn't let that hap­pen and picked up the knife. He was just get­ting ready to strike Si­en­na when..."I didn't mean for the knife to go in his back. I swear..." Drakes said, tears pour­ing down her face.

Manslaugh­ter in the first de­gree

Drakes called 911 and when the am­bu­lance and po­lice came, she told them she did it, she said. Of­fi­cers from the 70th Precinct in Flat­bush, ac­cus­tomed to her re­ports of abuse, tes­ti­fied on her be­half at her hear­ing and the judge of­fered her two to four years in jail. "I re­fused, pre­fer­ring to take the mat­ter to tri­al in­stead. But the ju­ry found me guilty and I got five to 15 years." Drakes did ten years at three max­i­mum se­cu­ri­ty pris­ons dur­ing which time her moth­er, who had been tak­ing care of her chil­dren, died.

"This was hard for me. I was her on­ly daugh­ter and we were close." Drakes' chil­dren stayed with some nuns at a con­vent for a few years and then end­ed up with a cousin. From the be­gin­ning of her jail sen­tence the US im­mi­gra­tion de­part­ment told Drakes they were think­ing of de­port­ing her. "Three years lat­er, they took me be­fore the im­mi­gra­tion court and or­dered me de­port­ed. They said it was be­cause I had com­mit­ted a vi­o­lent crime." Drakes of­fi­cial­ly signed out of prison on No­vem­ber 8, 2001, but was tak­en to Pike Coun­ty jail where she was fur­ther de­tained. With­out warn­ing, at 5 am on De­cem­ber 28, 2001, while most of the world was still cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas, pris­ons of­fi­cers awoke Drakes and told her: "You're leav­ing." "They put me on a plane go­ing to Trinidad," she re­called. "I ar­rived here at 4.30 in the evening and had no place, or no one, to go to."

Af­ter stay­ing with dif­fer­ent rel­a­tives and friends and work­ing at many jobs, Drakes has set­tled, some­what. "I have been a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer for the last three years and I am rent­ing an apart­ment in St Joseph for $1,500 a month." "I might have been bear­ing it but I have not been deal­ing with it." Drakes said de­por­tees are stig­ma­tised in T&T and the coun­try is still for­eign to her. And the crime sit­u­a­tion is wor­ry­ing. "I am fright­ened for my life. Bod­ies are drop­ping every­where in Trinidad. It doesn't hap­pen like this in New York." Drakes is long­ing to see her three-year-old grand­daugh­ter. "I have nev­er seen her," she wept. "I wish some­body could help me get back home, even if for a short time." She said her daugh­ter has been writ­ing US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, who seems sym­pa­thet­ic to­wards im­mi­grants, for help. Craig Cruick­shank, an­oth­er de­por­tee, is try­ing to get an im­mi­gra­tion lawyer to help her.