Federal immigration officials detained a U.S.-born citizen for nearly a month, refusing to believe his documents were real and releasing him only after reporting on his wrongful jailing led to a widespread public backlash. Dallas News reports that 18-year-old Francisco Erwin Galicia’s first words to his mom following his release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement were, “Mommy, they let me go. I'm free.”
Galicia had been wrongfully detained since June 27, first by Border Patrol—which reportedly denied him a phone call for three weeks—and then by ICE. Francisco’s mom, Sanjuana, said she showed border officials “his original birth certificate and other documents,” including “a congratulatory certificate Parkland [Memorial Hospital] staff gave to his mother the day he was born,” but “they ignored them.”
Officials had doubted his documents because when they checked his fingerprints, they eventually saw that Sanjuana had “solicited a visitors visa for Francisco when he was a minor and falsely claimed that he was born in Mexico.” That, however, doesn’t change the fact that he was born here, he did nothing wrong, and officials continued to detain him even when they saw his official documents with their own eyes.
“He’s been here all his life,” his attorney Claudia Galan said, but “when Border Patrol checked his documents, they just didn’t believe they were real. They kept telling him they were fake.” The New York Times reports that “ICE did not immediately comment. Nor did U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, the agency that first detained Galicia.” Nor was there any public support for his release from Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz—and voters should remember that when Cornyn is up for reelection next year.
”Galan said she believes Galicia was ‘absolutely’ a victim of racial profiling,” the Times continues. Officials have a history of detaining citizens because of the color of their skin: Last year, Michigan police captain Curt VanderKooi emailed ICE about a Latino man he saw on the news, arrested for setting off a hospital’s fire alarm. “Could you please check his status?” he asked. But Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, a military veteran with PTSD, was born in the state.
Ramos-Gomez was also jailed by ICE officials until they were also apparently convinced he was a U.S. citizen, and released him after three days so he could get the care he needed. Francisco is also now home—and he should think about suing, if he isn’t considering it already. Yes, that money comes from taxpayers, but we’re also paying for ICE to create this havoc, and until we elect a government that will get these unshackled agencies under control, we should be paying dearly. And remember: One of us may be next.