An American citizen born in the United States who was arrested is then detained in county prison at the immigration and customs application (ICE) in Florida, triggering a tumult this week when he was accused of being illegally in the United States, was released.
A defender of Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez had initially displayed his birth certificate in court, and the judge concluded that he was authentic, but the 20-year-old was always placed behind bars after a state prosecutor said that the court had not competent for his release, because the federal authorities wanted him to be held. Lopez-Gomez was released Thursday evening.
His mother, Sebastiana Gomez-Perez, was turned upside down by looking at her son to make a distant appearance during a court hearing Thursday, according to Florida Phoenix, who first pointed out.
“I wanted to say to them:” Where are you going to take him? It is by here “. I felt immense helplessness because I could not do anything, and I am desperate to get my son out of there,” she said at the exit in Spanish, then adding: “It hurts so much. I’m sorry, I can’t.”
The incident came in the middle of a series of aggressive anti-immigration measures by the Trump administration against many documented people, including American citizens, and also involving challenges or contempt for court decisions. The challenge to a birth certificate in this case has even echoed the foment by Donald Trump of a false argument dating from many years that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, which would have made the former president, born in Hawaii, ineligible to present himself to the White House.
Wednesday, Florida Highway Patrol arrested Lopez-Gomez, who was born in the neighboring state of Georgia, during a traffic stop of a car in which he was a passenger on the way to work. Lopez-Gomez had crossed Florida to work on a construction site in Tallahassee, according to the media.
Lopez-Gomez was then sent to Leon County prison for a 48-hour taking requested by ICE, and was charged under a new immigration law in the Florida line to be an “unauthorized foreigner”.
The law, SB 4C, that the Republican Governor of Florida, Ron Desantis, signed in February, makes it a crime in the first degree for undocumented immigrants over the age of 18 for “knowingly” Florida after having “entered the United States by escaping or avoiding examination or inspection by immigration officers”.
In April, a Federal Court rendered a temporary ban on the State which prevented the law from imposing itself.
The Florida Phoenix reported that Leon’s county judge, Lashawn Riggans, had rejected the accusation of offense and also examined the birth certificate of Lopez-Gomez after the community lawyer Silvia Alba agitated the document before the court at the first hearing of Lopez-Gomez.
“Looking at him, feeling it, and holding it in the light, the court can clearly see the watermark to show that it is indeed an authentic document,” said Rigna. However, she added that, despite finding no likely cause of the accusation, she had “no jurisdiction other than what I have already done” to release Lopez-Gomez because of the request for local authorities to hold it for 48 hours.
Lopez-Gomez was finally released Thursday evening, reports CNN, citing a family spokesperson. After his release, Thomas Kennedy of Florida Immigration Coalition published a photo of a visibly emotional lope-go with supporters. “It is free !! thank you to everyone who shared, called and did anything to help secure his release,” wrote Kennedy.
It was not clear why Lopez-Gomez had perhaps been subjected to an ice immigration detainee, a request for the ice which requests the federal or local agencies to apply the law to notify it before publishing a “removable extraterrestrial”, as well as “maintaining foreigners up to 48 hours … So DHS (Department of Security of the House) has time to assume the custody”.
According to legal immigration Resource Center, “many American citizens have been the subject of erroneous ice prisoners and even prolonged detention and move, despite their affirmation of citizenship … These prisoners who lack probable cause are illegal, and the ice must withdraw or cope with responsibility.”
The Guardian contacted Ice to comment.
