He's 23. He was brought to the U.S. when he was seven. He willingly gave his information to the federal government so he could get a legal work permit under President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. And when ICE agents showed up to detain his father, Daniel Ramirez Medina became a "collateral arrest." The L.A. Times writes:
Ramirez was sleeping at his father’s home near Seattle when agents arrived and arrested his father, for whom they had an arrest warrant, the lawsuit says.
After the arrest, according to the complaint, the agents asked Ramirez, “Are you legally here?”
“Yes, I have a work permit,” he replied, and on his brother’s advice, declined to answer further questions.
At that point, the complaint says, agents took Ramirez to a processing center in Seattle, where he again informed authorities that he had a work permit. “One of the agents stated: ‘It doesn’t matter, because you weren’t born in this country,’” the petition said.
Ramirez’s attorneys said his “unprecedented and unjustified” arrest was a clear broken promise by the federal government.
The whole point of the DACA program was that people would "come out of the shadows" to obtain permits so they could live and work here legally, among other things. That was how the federal government advertised it.
ICE officials claimed Ramirez has a history of gang membership and called him a "risk to public safety." But they didn't provide any evidence and Ramirez, who has no criminal record, rejected the assertion.
Ramirez’s attorneys, who say Ramirez has never been convicted of a crime, denied the gang claim “unequivocally” and said he was “repeatedly pressured by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to falsely admit affiliation.”
Because of course they did. They had no basis for the arrest otherwise. Tough to know who to believe, federal agents who follow kids home from school so they can arrest their parents or a guy who was nabbed sleeping on his father's couch.
Did we forget to mention that Ramirez has a 3-year-old son, a U.S. citizen? Feel safer?
#MAGA