DACA recipient with disability and clean record detained by ICE

Copper · 07:40 PM

Quote:

The 20-year-old alleges that a guard in ICE detention mocked his prosthetic leg.

A 20-year-old undocumented immigrant with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status has been in ICE detention for a month, despite President Donald Trump’s promises not to go after young people with DACA protections, an advocate for the young man said on Monday.

Felipe Abonza-Lopez and his advocates say he was picked up in spite of a clean criminal record when he was riding in a car with undocumented family members. Customs and Border Protection confirmed arresting a DACA recipient, and said it was “in the course of a human smuggling investigation.” The recipient’s “status will be reviewed at an immigration hearing,” Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Felix Chavez said in a statement.

Amy Fischer, the policy director of RAICES, which is assisting with Abonza-Lopez’s case, said he was not smuggling and has not been charged with anything.

“If CBP is trying to criminalize DACA recipients with mixed status families for driving in a car with their undocumented family members, that is wholly unjust,” she said in an email.

Abonza-Lopez is one of nearly 700,000 young undocumented immigrants, often called Dreamers, who hold two-year work permits under the DACA program. Those permits and the deportation protections that come with them are supposed to still apply, even though Trump rescinded the program in early September. The president tweeted at the time that people with DACA “have nothing to worry about” — something immigrant rights advocates say is not the case.

Abonza-Lopez, who came to the U.S. from Mexico at age 5, has DACA protections that expire in May 2019, so he should be protected, Fischer said. While it’s possible to lose DACA status for certain crimes or for gang activity, Abonza-Lopez has no criminal record and his status has not been revoked, she said. But he ended up in detention anyway.

“We know that ICE will try to detain and deport people who have DACA so long as no one is paying attention to it,” Fischer said.

Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office asked Border Patrol for assistance after a citizen reported a suspicious vehicle on Oct. 12. The people in the car were then picked up by Border Patrol and later transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Agents determined that two people in the car had been previously deported and reinstated their orders of removal. They charged an additional person with illegal entry. The other two individuals included a DACA recipient ― presumably, Abonza-Lopez.

ICE did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment by press time.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.huffp...7ffcdf4e9e/amp

JohannBernoulli1667 · 11-13-2017, 07:48 PM

What an idiot...

Of course this will trigger the Trump idiots.

Chn · 11-13-2017, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohannBernoulli1667

What an idiot...

Of course this will trigger the Trump idiots.

Why are you so quick to judge the guy? There doesn't seem to be enough information in the article to conclude if he was actually doing anything illegal.

Sure, the anti-immigrant crowd latches on to articles like these and tries to paint some DACA beneficiaries as bad, but we shouldn't be so quick to do the same before we know all the facts.

Copper · 11-13-2017, 08:23 PM

This could have happened to anyone in my opinion. We all have family and friends that are undocumented and we ride in the same car with.

The kid wasn't smuggling anyone. ICE just wanted to charge him with smuggling because his passengers were illegal and he was the one driving.

Hallowpoint1911 · 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chn

Why are you so quick to judge the guy? There doesn't seem to be enough information in the article to conclude if he was actually doing anything illegal.

Sure, the anti-immigrant crowd latches on to articles like these and tries to paint some DACA beneficiaries as bad, but we shouldn't be so quick to do the same before we know all the facts.

I have the same question, how can you call him an idiot when it clearly states it was family members.
Check yourself

JohannBernoulli1667 · 11-13-2017, 08:38 PM

Well, Do not drive with undocumented family members through checkpoints. It has happened before, at some point people have to learn from other's mistakes.

Got_Daca · 11-13-2017, 08:43 PM

Smugglers will be treated very bad by ICE

MalditoDuende · 11-13-2017, 10:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohannBernoulli1667

Well, Do not drive with undocumented family members through checkpoints. It has happened before, at some point people have to learn from other's mistakes.

"Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office asked Border Patrol for assistance after a citizen reported a suspicious vehicle on Oct. 12. The people in the car were then picked up by Border Patrol and later transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

Sounds like he didn't go through a checkpoint at all. Some busy body thought they looked suspicious and called the police. I always took you for being somewhat reasonable wtf man

AztecAztec · 11-13-2017, 10:46 PM

Quote:

Felipe Abonza Lopez, 20, is being held in an immigration detention facility in Pearsall. In a letter from the detention center distributed by the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, Abonza wrote that he’s in pain because he isn’t receiving receiving medical treatment.

Border Patrol agents stopped Abonza and four other people, two from Mexico and two from Honduras, near Uvalde on Oct. 12. In a statement, the agency said the four others were in the country illegally and they were arrested along with Abonza “during the course of a human smuggling investigation.”

Two were deported, one was charged with illegal reentry and Abonza and another were given notices to appear in immigration court for deportation proceedings. No one was charged with human smuggling.

http://www.expressnews.com/news/loca...n-12354324.php

Five people in the car. Three had been deported / removed before , one was not a citizen/GC and the DACA guy.

Saying he was driving with family having "two cousins" in the care is not what I thought. I was thinking , his Mom, granny and sister or something.

dreamer12345 · 11-13-2017, 11:01 PM

In Trump's America, driving with someone who's illegal makes you an accessory of human trafficking.

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DACA recipient with disability and clean record detained by ICE