{"id":132176,"date":"2016-03-03T10:33:09","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T17:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=132176"},"modified":"2017-01-10T06:48:40","modified_gmt":"2017-01-10T13:48:40","slug":"u-s-citizen-jailed-in-immigration-status-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/03\/u-s-citizen-jailed-in-immigration-status-mistake\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. citizen jailed in immigration status mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ricardo Garza was just a few footsteps from freedom when the trouble started.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_132396\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 336px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-132396\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Garza-Ricardo-336x296.jpg\" alt=\"Ricardo Garza\" width=\"336\" height=\"296\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Courtesy photo<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ricardo Garza<\/p><\/div>\n<p>He had posted bail and was on his way out the door of the Grand Prairie Police Department Detention Center \u2014 where he had been booked on charges of driving while intoxicated \u2014 when a jailer began asking questions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was maybe 3 feet away from breathing fresh air,\u201d Garza recalled. \u201cAnd [the jailer] said \u2018What\u2019s your name? What\u2019s your birthdate? What\u2019s your social? Where were you born?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That last question, and the way\u00a0police reacted to his\u00a0answer, would throw<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>the 46-year-old warehouse manager\u00a0into the messy intersection of local law enforcement and U.S. immigration policy,\u00a0ultimately triggering a federal lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p>Garza told jail\u00a0officials he was born in Mexico but had since become a U.S. citizen. But when the jail\u00a0contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to verify his status, federal immigration officials told jailers they believed Garza was a U.S. permanent resident whose criminal history potentially made him a deportable immigrant.<\/p>\n<p>Their request to Grand Prairie: Don\u2019t let him out.<\/p>\n<p>What happened next highlighted the conflicting pressures local jails face when it comes to foreign-born inmates: On one hand, state and federal lawmakers want local law enforcement officials to be tough on immigrants accused of crimes. On the other, civil rights activists and immigrant advocates want federal immigration authorities to\u00a0stop asking local jails to turn\u00a0over information on people who are arrested.\u00a0They cite the detention of potential citizens as Exhibit A in their quest.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/02\/27\/us-citizen-held-immigration-question\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Texas Tribune<\/a>,\u00a0a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. It\u2019s part of the news organization\u2019s \u201cBorder on Insecurity\u201d series.\u00a0The Texas Tribune is taking a yearlong look at the issues of border security and immigration, reporting on the reality and rhetoric around these topics. <a href=\"http:\/\/apps.texastribune.org\/bordering-on-insecurity\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up to get<\/a> story alerts.<\/p>\n<h3>The documents<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Lawsuit against Dallas County filed <a href=\"http:\/\/static.texastribune.org\/media\/documents\/121815_civil_rights_complaint.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Dec. 18, 2015<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Lawsuit against Dallas County filed <a href=\"http:\/\/static.texastribune.org\/media\/documents\/102615_civil_rights_complaint.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Oct. 26, 2015<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n<p>ICE placed a detainer on Garza on Oct. 30, 2015, 13 days after he was arrested,<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>the same day he was transferred to Dallas County Jail. A detainer is the agency&#8217;s way of asking a jail to delay an inmate&#8217;s release by up to 48 hours so immigration officials can take them into custody.\u00a0Dallas County decided to hold Garza without allowing him to post bond.\u00a0Garza\u2019s detainer was not canceled until Dec. 5 \u2014 36 days later \u2014 when his\u00a0attorney, Eric\u00a0Puente, provided evidence that Garza had \u201cderived,\u201d or acquired, U.S. citizenship when his mother naturalized in 1984. ICE has no civil authority to place immigration detainers on U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn Dec. 5, while still in the custody of Dallas County Jail, Mr. Garza\u2019s attorney provided additional documentation to ICE officers which indicated that Mr. Garza had derived U.S. citizenship,\u201d agency spokesman Carl Rusnok said in a statement. \u201cBased on this information, ICE dropped its detainer the same day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Garza and six other former Dallas County inmates filed\u00a0a federal civil rights lawsuit on December 18 against Dallas County and\u00a0Sheriff Lupe Valdez, alleging that Dallas County violated their constitutional rights by refusing to release them on\u00a0bond because they had immigration detainers.\u00a0Puente said the county&#8217;s action\u00a0amounted to illegal\u00a0pretrial detention.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat Dallas County does is they go much further than what ICE is asking them to do,\u201d Puente said. \u201cThey use the ICE detainer as an instrument to deny the constitutional right to bail. They say, \u2018because you have an ICE detainer, you just can\u2019t pay bail. You cannot get out, period, until your case is disposed of.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rusnok said ICE asked\u00a0Dallas County to notify its\u00a0agents 48 hours before Garza was going to be released \u2014 not to hold Garza beyond when he would have otherwise been let go.<\/p>\n<p>Melinda Urbina, a spokeswoman at the Dallas County Sheriff\u2019s Department, declined to comment on Garza\u2019s case because of the ongoing lawsuit. But she said that if ICE\u00a0asks\u00a0the county to hold an inmate for an extra 48 hours, the additional time typically does not begin until after the prisoner\u2019s county charges are resolved.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe follow what [ICE asks] us to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Garza\u2019s case is the latest challenging Dallas County\u2019s cooperation with immigration officials. In October, Valdez said she would decide case-by-case whether to honor ICE detainers for certain offenses. The policy change sparked the ire of Gov. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/greg-abbott\/\" target=\"_blank\">Greg Abbott<\/a>, who characterized Valdez\u2019s new approach in <a href=\"http:\/\/gov.texas.gov\/files\/press-office\/DallasCounty_FederalImmigrationDetainer_10262015.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">a public letter<\/a> as lenient and \u201ca serious danger to Texans.\u201d The same day as Abbott\u2019s letter, 16 former Dallas County inmates who had been held on\u00a0detainers filed a similar federal civil rights lawsuit against the county. Puente is also one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in that case.<\/p>\n<p>But Texas law enforcement agencies rarely refuse a detainer. Between January 2014 and September 2015, more than 18,000 immigration detainers were declined by law enforcement agencies across the United States,\u00a0but only 146 were declined by Texas law enforcement, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/01\/15\/34-texas-counties-declined-hold-deportable-immigra\/\" target=\"_blank\">an analysis of federal immigration detainers by The Texas Tribune<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Garza\u2019s case highlights the complicated nature of determining U.S. citizenship, and many U.S. citizens have wound up with detainers placed on them in recent years. From fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2012, ICE issued <a href=\"http:\/\/trac.syr.edu\/immigration\/reports\/311\/\" target=\"_blank\">at least 834 detainers against U.S. citizens<\/a>, including 83 in Texas and seven in Dallas County Jail, according to TRAC\u2019s Immigration Project, a research project at Syracuse University that compiles immigration data obtained from ICE.<\/p>\n<p>To prove that Garza is a U.S. citizen, Puente gave ICE a 1999 decision from a Dallas\u00a0immigration judge\u00a0halting his removal proceedings initiated\u00a0after Garza was sentenced to five years of deferred probation in 1996 stemming from an aggravated assault charge, an offense that often leads to deportation for non-citizens. After Garza successfully completed probation, the charge was dismissed in 2001, according to the Dallas County District Clerk&#8217;s Office. To demonstrate his U.S. citizenship, Garza had to show the judge\u00a0his birth certificate, his parents\u2019 divorce certificate and his mother\u2019s certificate of naturalization. Puente said ICE should have had the case on file.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf [ICE] would have paid attention to him, they would have found out, as I did, that he is a U.S. citizen,\u201d said Puente. \u201cICE has the documents to prove so. I supplied those documents to the ICE officers who then lifted and canceled his ICE detainer. But I used their own records to show that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Garza acquired U.S. citizenship under a since-repealed provision of federal law\u00a0allowing\u00a0a child born outside of the United States to\u00a0automatically acquire U.S. citizenship if both parents \u2014 or in the case of divorce, the parent with custody \u2014 became a naturalized citizen before the child turned 18.<\/p>\n<p>Garza was born in 1969 in Monterrey, Mexico. When he was three years old, Garza and his parents entered the\u00a0United States\u00a0legally through\u00a0Laredo. His parents divorced in 1982 and Garza\u2019s mother retained custody of him. In 1984, when Garza was 14 years old, his mother became a U.S. citizen, which also made Garza a U.S. citizen. He has always held a legal immigration status in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>Garza, a father of two boys, ages\u00a09 and 16, said he feared he was really going to be deported and the extra time in prison placed a financial and emotional burden on him.\u00a0<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He said prison and immigration officials would not listen to him as he\u00a0repeatedly told them he was a U.S. citizen. While in jail, Garza got behind on his bills, had to take out loans, paid $2,000 to retrieve his impounded vehicle and missed doctors appointments related to the open-heart surgery he had undergone several months before his arrest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI lost a lot,\u201d he said. \u201c[I lost] my job, my car, I\u2019m behind on my bills, almost lost my house. I lost a lot of things emotionally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ricardo Garza was just a few footsteps from freedom when the trouble started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":132396,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[140,3331,2260,116],"class_list":["post-132176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-bordering-on-insecurity","tag-texas","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}