A US-born American citizen who was arrested then detained in county jail at the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Florida, sparking uproar this week when he was accused of being in the US illegally, has been released.
An advocate for Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez had displayed his birth certificate in court initially, and the judge concluded it was authentic, but the 20-year-old was still put behind bars on Wednesday after a state prosector claimed the court did not have jurisdiction over his release because the federal authorities wanted him detained. Lopez-Gomez was released on Thursday evening.
His mother, Sebastiana Gomez-Perez, was distraught as she watched her son make a remote appearance at a court hearing on Thursday, according to the Florida Phoenix, which first reported his detention.
“I wanted to tell them: ‘Where are you going to take him? He is from here’. I felt immense helplessness because I couldn’t do anything, and I am desperate to get my son out of there,” she told the outlet in Spanish, then faltered, adding: “It hurts so much. I’m sorry, I can’t.”
The incident came amid a series of aggressive anti-immigration actions by the Trump administration against many documented people, including US citizens, and also involving challenges to or defiance of court rulings. The challenge to a birth certificate in this case even has echoes of Donald Trump’s fomenting of a fake argument dating back many years that Barack Obama was not born in the US, which would have made the former president, who was born in Hawaii, ineligible to run for the White House.
On Wednesday, Florida Highway Patrol had arrested Lopez-Gomez, who was born in the neighboring state of Georgia, during a traffic stop of a car in which he was a passenger en route to work. Lopez-Gomez had been crossing into Florida to work on a construction site in Tallahassee, according to media reports.
Lopez-Gomez was then sent to Leon county jail on a 48-hour hold requested by Ice, and was charged under a new hardline immigration law in Florida with being an “unauthorized alien”.
The law, SB 4C, which Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed in February, makes it a first-degree misdemeanor for undocumented immigrants over 18-years old to “knowingly” enter Florida after “entering the United States by eluding or avoiding examination or inspection by immigration officers”.
In April, a federal court issued a temporary restraining order on the state that blocked the law from being enforced.
The Florida Phoenix reported that Leon county judge LaShawn Riggans dismissed the misdemeanor charge and also examined Lopez-Gomez’s birth certificate after community advocate Silvia Alba waved the document in court during Lopez-Gomez’s first hearing.
“In looking at it, and feeling it, and holding it up to the light, the court can clearly see the watermark to show that this is indeed an authentic document,” Riggans said. However, she added that despite finding no probable cause for the charge, she did not have “any jurisdiction other than what I’ve already done” to release Lopez-Gomez because of Ice’s request to the local authorities to hold him for 48-hours.
Lopez-Gomez was ultimately released on Thursday evening, CNN reports, citing a family spokesperson. Following his release, Thomas Kennedy of the Florida Immigration Coalition posted a picture of a visibly emotional Lopez-Gomez alongside supporters. “He is free!! Thank you to everyone who shared, call and did anything to help secure his release,” Kennedy wrote.
It was not clear why Lopez-Gomez may have been subjected to an Ice immigration detainer, a request from Ice that asks federal, state, or local law enforcement agencies to notify it before releasing a “removable alien”, as well as to “hold the alien up to 48 hours … so DHS [Department of Homeland Security] has time to assume custody”.
According to Immigration Legal Resource Center, “many US citizens have been the mistaken subject of Ice detainers and even prolonged detention and removal, despite their assertion of citizenship … These detainers that lack probable cause are illegal, and Ice must withdraw them or face liability.”
The Guardian has reached out to Ice for comment.
