"Dreamer" has DACA status stripped after (lawyer alleges) ICE doctored his statement

[tanaqui]

(Following up on the post earlier in the week:)

Lawyers for DACA recipient Daniel Ramirez -- arrested last Friday during a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain his father and placed in deportation proceedings on Tuesday -- are claiming that ICE doctored a statement by Ramirez to justify stripping him of his DACA protections and beginning deportation.

According to Vox:

On Tuesday, lawyers filed a complaint in federal court over Ramirez’s detention, asking a judge to order the Department of Homeland Security to release Ramirez because he hasn’t been charged with anything and shouldn’t, as a DACA recipient, have been detained in the first place.

The federal magistrate judge in the case ordered the government to clarify why Ramirez was detained despite having DACA, and whether DHS had placed him in deportation proceedings.

On Thursday, the federal government filed a brief with the judge indicating that they had, in fact, placed Ramirez in deportation proceedings on Tuesday the 14th. When that happened, Ramirez was stripped of his DACA protections.

In a separate filing on Thursday, Ramirez's lawyers said ICE has launched a public campaign to smear Ramirez. The filing said:

immigration officers removed words from a written statement by Ramirez denying gang involvement to make it sound as if he was admitting gang affiliation.

You can see a copy of the (incredibly badly doctored!) contested statement and details of what Ramirez says he actually wrote in this news story. Nobody is quite sure at this stage whether this is an isolated case, a new ICE policy -- or an isolated case that will turn into an new ICE policy if ICE succeeds.

As well as the actions suggested in our earlier post, such as supporting MALDEF and calling your representatives, the latest Re:Act newsletter offers some more ideas for action:

Support the National Immigration Law Center. The NILC has a mission to defend and advance the rights and opportunities of low-income immigrants and their family members.

View the current causes of Border Angels, an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization that advocates for issues related to the US-Mexican border.

Sign up for briefings with the National Immigration Forum.

The Re:Act newsletter has links to other cases where ICE seems to be pushing at the boundaries of policy under the Obama Administration.

Comments

[teaotter]

This is completely terrifying. Under any other administration, I'd expect them to blame the agents and expel them (even if they were operating under policy, getting caught is bad).

Under the current administration... I have zero faith that anything of the sort will happen.

[tanaqui]

What gets me is that the ICE officers haven't even tried to make their evidence look credible. They obviously think there'll never be any pushback on anything they do.

Anyway, the latest update is that the federal judge has ordered Ramirez to remain in custody while he goes before an immigration judge for a bond hearing, which has to take place within a week. If Ramirez doesn't get his bond hearing within that time, the case comes back to the federal judge -- and if Ramirez and his lawyers don't like the result of the bond hearing, they can then bring it back to the federal judge.

I'm hoping that means that the federal judge knows this is bullshit and that, while it sucks for Ramirez to be stuck in detention for another week, he's trying to make the process as correct and unchallengeable as possible, so that the eventual smacking that ICE gets will stick - for all the DACA recipients.

But who knows, given the reality we're currently living in.