A U.S. judge on Thursday ordered the release of a 27-year-old immigrant (a ‘dreamer’) who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) for 42 days in New Mexico, interpreting that the detention was illegal.
Judge William P. Johnson granted Paulo Cesar Gamez Lira, a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program instituted by former President Barack Obama in 2012, his freedom after the U.S. government refused to oppose the release, according to the court order.
Dreamer’ illegally detained
“The Government’s non-opposition effectively recognized that his continued detention was inappropriate.”
The Immigrant Advocacy Center of the Americas reported in a press release.
They had filed an appeal against the arrest in early September.
Gámez Lira, a father of four, was detained on August 13 when seven federal agents, several of them masked, surrounded his vehicle in the driveway of his Texas home.
This despite the fact that the man had a valid DACA permit.
He was held for 42 days at the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, New Mexico.
Center denounces illegal detention
“His current, valid and lawful grant of DACA was ignored, and he was unjustly detained like so many others in this country.”
Marisa Limón Garza, executive director of the Immigrant Advocacy Center of the Americas, denounced.
In his first administration (2017-2021), President Trump waged an unsuccessful legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court to eliminate the program, which protects eligible immigrants from deportation and grants them a work permit.
Concern grows over increase in arrests
His second administration has seen an increase in arrests of so-called “dreamers,” young undocumented migrants who were brought to the country as children by their parents or guardians and who are protected from deportation after the DACA program went into effect in 2012.
In response, civil groups last week launched a platform to monitor young migrants detained by U.S. ICE, which totals nearly 20 cases.
With information from EFE
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