DACA recipients targeted by ICE in El Paso. What w | RSS.com
Diego Mendoza-Moyers: In August, two people living and working in El Paso were arrested and detained by federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents. They were seemingly protected by DACA – deferred action on childhood arrival – a program meant to grant a level of legal status to people brought into the U.S. years ago as small children.
Still, (Catalina) “Xochitl” Santiago and Paulo Cesar Gamez Lira were picked up and sent to immigration detention centers. In Gamez Lira’s case, masked, plainclothes officers showed up at his home, pulled him from his vehicle in front of his children and took him away.
The enforcement operations targeting DACA recipients seem to run counter to the goal of President Donald Trump’s expanded immigration enforcement campaign of removing undocumented criminals.
Court rulings this week could lead to Santiago’s release soon. What comes next for Gamez Lira is less clear. And some question whether the administration will continue targeting DACA recipients for removal going forward.
So, we’ll welcome El Paso Matters editor and reporter Cindy Ramirez to the podcast to talk through these two cases and what they could tell us about the administration’s strategy around immigration enforcement going forward.
Before I talk to Cindy, though, I want to mention that this El Paso Matters Podcast episode is sponsored by Tawney, Acosta and Chaparro: truck crash and injury attorneys. Their team of local, seasoned trial attorneys are ready to help if you’ve been injured in a crash.
Cindy, thanks for joining me.
Cindy: Thank you for having me.
Diego: So, Cindy, can you share some background info on who Xochitl Santiago and Paulo Cesar Gamez Lira are?
Cindy: Sure. They’re both 28-year-olds from El Paso – El Paso County. Both were brought here as young children to the United States. And both, as you mentioned, are DACA recipients.
Xochitl is a community organizer, well-regarded for her work with farmworkers, workers groups and the like. Her detainment actually spurred some protests communitywide and across the country. Because people were familiar with her work or the type of work that she does.
Similarly, Paulo, as I mentioned, also 28, he’s from Horizon City. He was also brought over to the U.S. by his parents when he was a young child. Also, a DACA recipient. He is married and has two children with his current wife, one of whom is a baby of just a couple of months old who also has some serious illnesses, and he was actually on his way to take the baby to a doctor’s appointment when he was detained. I should also mention that Xochitl is also married.
Diego: And, so, they were targeted for deportation to countries that they don’t necessarily know, right? I mean, they’ve lived here for most of their lives, right?
Cindy: Right. And I think that that’s part of the big question, is that you never know where you’re going to be deported to. I don’t know that there was – they had deportation orders and process, but those do not yet list where they might be deported to.
Diego: But, basically, they’ve grown up here their entire lives in the U.S. as the country they know, essentially?
Cindy: Exactly. They grew up here mostly in El Paso and have gone to school here, have had families here, friends, work colleagues. Paolo is a forklift operator. But he’s also had a couple of other different jobs. And, so, they’re part of our community.
Diego: Yeah. And I wonder if you can talk through – we’ll get to their court cases in a minute – but can you talk about the circumstances of their arrests? And I think, I mentioned in the intro when you wrote about how plainclothes officers sort of showed up at Gamez Lira’s house and kind of boxed him in. Curious, if you can talk a little bit more about his arrest as well as Xochitl’s?
Cindy: Right. So, Paulo was detained on August 13th. There were several unmarked cars that drove up and blocked his exit from his own driveway in his Horizon City home. As you mentioned, there was a group of about seven men, all in plain clothes, many of them masked. Some of them armed. And they pulled him, dragged him, out of his car.
There was a video shared with Channel 26 KINT that shows some of that from the family’s cameras, and you could see the agents, or the people, we don’t know exactly who they were, pulling him out of the car, the children in the back crying, the children’s grandmother coming out and asking to be able to take the children away from that scene. So, that was pretty traumatic for them.
Diego: And Xochitl was arrested at the airport, is that right?
Cindy: That’s correct. Her detention was on August 3rd. She was on her way to board a plane to go to a conference in Dallas and Customs and Border Protection officers, they were in uniform and approached her and were asking about her papers, essentially. She did tell them that she was DACA. They took her to a room outside of public view. So, we don’t know, or I don’t know, exactly what happened there. But, in both of these cases, nobody had an arrest warrant for them.
Diego: And, so, I guess, can you share what we know about their cases this week or that we’re – we learned some new updates, I guess about what might happen to them?
Cindy: Yeah, some developments, certainly. So, this week, an immigration judge in Xochitl’s case basically terminated her deportation procedures. So, basically ordering her to be released. As of (Wednesday) morning, she had not been released. So, I don’t know when she might be released. Attorneys worry that it may not happen anytime soon, but it could. They’re supposed to anyway. That’s what her attorneys are arguing.
Diego: Why the uncertainty?
Cindy: Because there does have to be some paperwork completed and a process done in order to release her. But what that is, and how long it will take and why it’s not happening sooner we really don’t know.
Diego: Yeah. And Paulo has maybe a little bit more uncertainty around his case or around his release?
Cindy: Yeah, there’s a lot of uncertainty. So, in both cases, the other thing that happened was that there was a federal judge – and I should say that the federal judge is different from the immigration judge. The immigration judges work for the Justice Department. The federal judges are independent. And, so, federal judges in both their cases this week also issued temporary restraining orders against the government, basically telling the government that they cannot move either one from the place where they are currently in terms of the area. And that they cannot be deported.
So, it puts a hold on those proceedings for Paulo. He’s at the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, New Mexico. So, the order asked that he not be taken out of that area or the state of New Mexico so that he’s not transferred to another detention center and that he’s able to get his case heard in federal court.
Xochitl is in detention here in El Paso at the detention center on Montana near Hawkins, – not the new one at Fort Bliss, but the one on Hawkins, or near Hawkins. So, the judge, the federal judge, has ordered that she not be taken out of the West Texas jurisdiction.
Diego: Yeah, and you had a line in your story. That basically halted the removal of Paulo from New Mexico. Right? Because he couldn’t fight the case. Is that fair to say so he’s just stuck for the moment?
Cindy: Correct. He’s stuck in New Mexico. So, he could be within that area if he were to be released. But what that does is that it prohibits him from being transferred to any other detention center.
Diego: Yeah. And, so, you mentioned some of the detention centers that are operating and I believe there’s one at Fort Bliss that’s being stood up, right? Just wonder if you can talk a little bit more about where they’re detaining people and maybe how many people are in detention? Just generally, what’s the situation like for people who are sent to these detention facilities?
Cindy: Well, I will say that for both the detention center in El Paso on Montana, the one near Hawkins, that one as well as the Otero one have both been criticized by human rights groups for violating human rights in the way that they detain people longer than needed, in the way that they are not given access to the attorneys in a fast form. And other things and other violations that they’ve cited. With the new one going up at Fort Bliss, there’s concerns that there’ll be similar issues there.
And, right now, nationwide there’s about 61,000 people in immigration detention.
Diego: So, it’s a pretty large network of detention facilities and so forth.
One thing, too, you mentioned in your story – I should have asked earlier – but the number of DACA recipients is pretty large, right? I mean there are tens of thousands of DACA recipients in Texas, is that right?
Cindy: There is. And a lot of them – so, that went into effect in 2012. So, those numbers have increased since then. The government under Trump is no longer taking new applicants.
Diego: And, so, I wonder, I mean, has there been any sort of response or justification or explanation from, whether it’s ICE or Department of Homeland Security, about why these people who are, have families and are married and so forth, kind of living lives here, why they’re being targeted for deportation?
Cindy: Well, so DACA is supposed to offer a certain amount of protection from deportation. But the DHS assistant secretary has told various media outlets over the last couple of weeks since there’s been more arrests of these DACA recipients that DACA does not automatically protect them from deportation. And, so, it goes against the policy that was approved in 2012. There is a group of Democratic lawmakers that are asking for clarification for that.
Diego: Yeah. And, so, it’s kind of going against the tentative norm that’s been in place for 13 years, or so, or 12 years, I guess.
And then, last thing, I mean, do you think this could be something we continue to see where DACA recipients specifically are targeted for removal by ICE and by the administration generally?
Cindy: I think, definitely, that’s the fear and the concern of several human rights groups, as well as a lot of the attorneys that are already representing some of these DACA recipients, not just here in El Paso but throughout the country, that have been arrested the last couple weeks.
Diego: And I’ll just end here, I wonder what do you make of covering some of this stuff, seeing some of the families, I guess, the effect it takes? And, just generally, I wonder what you think of it personally and as a journalist who’s been covering this for quite some time?
Cindy: It’s always challenging and difficult and emotional to talk to the families that are involved in this, to the people that it’s happening to when you view them as people instead of statistics and numbers. I think we mentioned the 61,000 that are in detention. But, when you’re able to sit with them or their families and talk to them on a one-on-one level, hear their kids crying in the background or their spouses and parents, how emotional they are over it, you kind of gain a different understanding of the impact that this has on people, on families and in our community, and (they’re) not just DACA recipients or undocumented immigrants. They’re people at the end of the day.
Diego: Yeah. We’ll wrap up there, Cindy. And we’ll just look to you to continue keeping us informed on how this is all playing out and so forth. And we know this isn’t your only story on immigration and you’ve done a good job covering this. So, we’ll have you on again to talk about this. But appreciate you joining me.
Cindy: Thank you. Appreciate that.
The post Podcast: El Paso DACA recipients targeted for deportation by immigration officials. Our journalists talk about their cases. appeared first on El Paso Matters.
Read: Read More