Lawyers for a detained "Dreamer" went to court Friday seeking his immediate release and calling his arrest unconstitutional, but a federal magistrate ruled he wasn’t empowered to free the man without giving an immigration judge a "first crack."
But in a case that he said had far-reaching implications about federal policy regarding so-called Dreamers, Chief Magistrate Judge James Donohue took the unusual step of requiring that a bond hearing in immigration court be held within a week.
Lawyers and supporters of Daniel Ramirez Medina said they were disappointed the 23-year-old would not be freed, but took heart in the call for an expedited schedule.
The magistrate also set a briefing schedule to consider whether the federal court has jurisdiction to consider the merits of the case. The government has argued that it doesn’t, and that Ramirez’s removal proceedings belong only in immigration court.
Allegations of tampering
Daniel Ramirez Medina Public Counsel law firm
Daniel Ramirez Medina, 23, who was was brought to the U.S. illegally as a child but was protected from deportation by President Obama’s administration. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Medina on Feb. 10, 2017, at his father’s home and have alleged he’s a gang member, which Medina denies.
Daniel Ramirez Medina, 23, who was was brought to the U.S. illegally as a child but was protected from deportation by President Obama’s administration. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Medina on Feb. 10, 2017, at his father’s home and have alleged he’s a gang member, which Medina denies.
(Public Counsel law firm)
In another development, Ramirez’s attorneys on Thursday evening said a note from Ramirez, who is being held at the Northwest Detention Center in Seattle, was altered to make it look like he was admitting gang membership.
Mark Rosenbaum, a Los Angeles attorney helping to represent Ramirez, said the alleged note tampering was "one of the most serious examples of government misconduct" he has seen in 40 years of practice.
Rose Richeson, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not responded to the allegation.
The accusation about the note is the latest controversy in a case marked by contradictions and speculation over what it may reveal about President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
In the past couple of days, the federal government and attorneys for Ramirez, as well as the young man himself, have given vastly different versions of who he is and what he said under questioning.
Briefs submitted by both sides Thursday fleshed out their varying accounts of what happened since agents took Ramirez into custody in sububan Des Moines, Wash. Ramirez, the father of a 3-year-old, was brought illegally to this country when he was 7 and later given authorization to live and work here under President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. ICE agents arrested him Feb. 10, accusing him of being a gang member, which would void his DACA status.
In the brief submitted by Ramirez’s lawyers late Thursday, and in a subsequent conference call with news reporters, Ramirez’s lawyers said the young man submitted the note to detention officials to get out of a gang unit he had been placed in.
According to the lawyers, Ramirez’s note, as written began: "I came in and the officers said I have gang affiliation … so I wear an orange uniform."
The first part of the note was erased, according to his lawyers, who provided a copy with their brief of what they said was the tampered note. It began, "I have gang affiliation … "
Altered or not, the note still ended with him repeating that he was not affiliated with gangs.
According to the government brief, ICE agents arrested Ramirez in a Des Moines apartment around 8:30 a.m. last Friday. They were targeting not the 23-year-old but his father, who had previously been deported eight times, convicted of narcotics trafficking and sentenced to roughly a year in prison in this state, the government said.
While there, the agents found Ramirez sleeping on the living room floor, according to the government brief. Asked by an agent if he had ever been arrested, Ramirez said "yes," the brief said.
At that point, the agent arrested him.
It was later, while being interviewed at an ICE holding facility, that agents asked Ramirez if he had been involved in any gang activity.
"No, not no more," said Ramirez, according to the brief.
The agent pressed on with that line of questioning in relation to what an agent’s report called a "gang tattoo." That tattoo on his left arm read "La Paz BCS."
At that point, the agent’s report said, Ramirez added that he "used to hang out with the Surenos in California," fled that state to escape gangs, yet "still hangs out with the Paizas in Washington state."
The agent concluded that Ramirez no longer qualified for the DACA program due to gang association and he was taken to the detention center.
A declaration by Ramirez, filed with his lawyers’ brief, differs in details big and small from the government’s account. It said he was sleeping on a couch, not the floor in the apartment when agents found him, and he was handcuffed immediately after saying he was born in Mexico. The cuffs stayed on, Ramirez said, after he told them "I have a work permit. You cannot take me."
Then, they started asking him about gang affiliation.
"It felt like forever," he said in the declaration. "I felt an intense amount of pressure, like if I did not give them something, they would not stop. So, I told them that I did nothing more than hang out with a few people who may have been Surenos, but that since I became an adult I have not spoken with any of those people."
He said they zeroed in on his tattoo, which they assumed was related to gangs, but he said actually signified the place of his birth: La Paz, the capital city of Baja California Sur, abbreviated by the initials "BCS" on the tattoo.
Rosenbaum, in the conference call, called the gang accusation racist and an attempt to cover up a mistaken arrest.
"He has picked the fruit that all of us eat," added Rosenbaum, noting that Ramirez was a farmworker in California before moving here about a month ago. In his declaration, the Dreamer said he was looking for a way to provide for his son, perhaps working in auto repair.
Protest in Seattle Jason Redmond / AFP/Getty Images People march in Seattle to protest the detention of Daniel Ramirez Medina by federal immigration officials. Ramirez had been shielded from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. People march in Seattle to protest the detention of Daniel Ramirez Medina by federal immigration officials. Ramirez had been shielded from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. (Jason Redmond / AFP/Getty Images)
DACA test case?
As yet, nobody knows whether the case signifies anything about Trump’s plans for Dreamers.
Trump promised to end the program during the campaign, and when he was elected, many Dreamers feared the president would seek to deport them.
In a news conference Thursday, Trump called DACA "a very, very difficult subject for me. … It’s one of the most difficult subjects I have because you have these incredible kids."
His administration continues to approve new applications and renew existing DACA permits, said Cortes Romero.
"As far as we know, there hasn’t been a situation like this," said Cortes Romero, adding he was inclined to believe it was "just a one-time circumstance."
Jorge Baron, executive director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, isn’t so sure. "I do think this kind of situation would not have happened under Obama," he said.
He said he worried that an under-scrutinized executive order issued by Trump during his first week in office sent a signal to immigration officers to step up their enforcement efforts and gave them broad discretion about whom to target. That order, which contained more-widely publicized provisions aimed at punishing "sanctuary cities" like Seattle, outlined new priorities for immigration enforcement.
They included deporting undocumented immigrants charged with any criminal offense, whether they were convicted or not. What’s more, the order also licenses immigration officers to remove anyone who, in their judgment, poses a risk to public safety or national security.
"That could be anything," said Baron, saying such broad leeway invites abuse.
The Department of Homeland Security has not linked Ramirez’s arrest to Trump’s order, however. In a statement, it pointed to long-standing guidelines in the DACA program saying that participation can be terminated at any time for those found to be a threat.
Since 2012, the statement said, 1,500 Dreamers have had their permits revoked for such reasons including criminal activity and gang membership.
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