Donald Trump tweeted that undocumented immigrant youth “have nothing to worry about,” but advocates say that a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient has been detained at the South Texas Detention Complex in Pearsall, Texas, for a month now, despite having active DACA protections through May 2019 and no criminal record. According to the Huffington Post, the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office asked Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents for assistance “after a citizen reported a suspicious vehicle” on Oct. 12. Once there, Border Patrol agents took everyone in the car into custody, including Felipe Abonza-Lopez:
Abonza-Lopez and his advocates say he was picked up in spite of a clean criminal record when he was riding in a car with undocumented family members. Customs and Border Protection confirmed arresting a DACA recipient, and said it was “in the course of a human smuggling investigation.” The recipient’s “status will be reviewed at an immigration hearing,” Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Felix Chavez said in a statement.
Amy Fischer, the policy director of RAICES, which is assisting with Abonza-Lopez’s case, said he was not smuggling and has not been charged with anything.
“If CBP is trying to criminalize DACA recipients with mixed status families for driving in a car with their undocumented family members, that is wholly unjust,” she said in an email.
Abonza-Lopez has been in custody ever since. Advocates further say that the young man, who wears a prosthetic leg following an amputation when he was a little boy, has been mocked for his disability by South Texas Detention Complex employees. Abonza-Lopez suffers from lingering pain and “wrote in a Nov. 11 letter that when he went to the medical clinic to ask for help, the medical worker and a guard joked about his leg in English, acting as if he did not understand. The guard said, ‘You can put a broomstick in his leg and he can use [it to] sweep,’ Abonza-Lopez wrote.” According to his letter, Abonza-Lopez “is also afraid that someone will steal his leg when he takes it off to sleep.”
This is a fucking outrage, and yet another reason why undocumented immigrant youth cannot wait any longer—Congress must pass a clean Dream Act, and now.
As America’s Voice notes, “Felipe’s detention is the latest example that, despite President Trump’s false reassurances, DACA recipients and other young immigrants are under threat of detention and deportation under this Administration.” Since Trump’s inauguration, Dreamers have been targeted by immigration agents, including Daniel Ramirez Medina, a Seattle DACA recipient who was detained for more than six weeks. In September, Border Patrol detained as many as 10 DACA recipients at a Texas checkpoint, and this month horrifically detained a 10-year-old child with cerebral palsy. At least one DACA recipient, Juan Manuel Montes, has been deported despite having valid DACA status.
Advocates further note that thousands of DACA recipients are already losing their protections.“By March 5, 2018, approximately 22,000 DACA recipients already will have lost status and face the challenges listed above,” said the Center for American Progress. “But that number will only be the beginning. Come March 6, 2018, the number of people losing DACA each day will significantly increase, until no protections remain for the nearly 800,000 Dreamers who have been making enormous contributions since they first received DACA.”
Dreamers like Abonza-Lopez. “Please get me out of here,” he continued in his handwritten letter. “I don’t deserve to be treated so inhumanely.” Hundreds of thousands of immigrant youth like him are living in agony every single day because Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell continue to delay a vote on the bipartisan DREAM Act. Some Republican leaders say there could be a window for a vote early next year, but that’s just further delay. They need a vote now.
“Felipe Abonza Lopez’s case is just the latest reminder that the same Trump Administration that ended DACA is now actively targeting Dreamers, ignoring DACA status, and set to detain and deport anyone they come across,” said Lynn Tramonte of America’s Voice. “It’s up to Members of Congress to stand up for a more just and decent vision of America and to counter these outrageous actions by the Trump Administration. The urgency is now for Felipe and thousands of other young immigrants who need Congress to resolve Dreamers’ status this year.”