Report: Trump Administration Holding DREAMer For At Least 5 Days
According to a report by Think Progress, the Trump administration has been holding a 23-year-old DREAMer for at least 5 days. Think Progress notes that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has detained “Daniel Ramirez Medina, a 23-year-old undocumented immigrant who is protected from deportation under an initiative authorized by the Obama administration.”
Ramirez Medina has informed ICE officials that he in the country legally and has a work permit, however the ICE agent responded to him by saying, “It doesn’t matter, because you weren’t born in this country.”
ICE agents detained Ramirez Medina on Friday, February 10 in Seattle.
Think Progress notes, “The lawsuit explained that Ramirez Medina told agents that he was shielded from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative, which has granted temporary deportation relief and work authorization for 752,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children.”
The DACA program was created by President Obama to “ensure that enforcement resources are not expended on low priority cases, such as individuals who came to the United States as children and meet other key guidelines.”
The report went on to note that, “His counsel argued that he was approved for the DACA initiative twice, meaning that the Department of Homeland Security has twice determined, after performing background checks, that he didn’t pose any threat to national security or public safety.”
A judge has asked the Department of Homeland Security, to justify his detainment. “If petitioner is still detained and removal proceedings have not been initiated against him, what is the basis for ICE’s authority to detain him?” the judge asked. “What limitations are there, if any, on the Court’s ability to hold a detention hearing for petitioner before the merits of his habeas petition have been decided?”
You can read the full Think Progress report here.
