There’s power in standing up for each other
The recent release of a number of unjustly detained immigrants shows there’s power in resistance and speaking out for our neighbors. In Texas, Paulo Cesar Gamez Lira and Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago recently won their release from ICE detention after being swept up and detained despite having valid DACA protections. Loved ones, advocates and community members had fiercely rallied around the two, arguing that ICE’s targeting was cruel and unjust.
The courts agreed. Late last month, Gamez Lira was the first of the two young immigrants to be ordered for release by a federal judge, after the administration’s attorneys “effectively acknowledged that his continued detention was inappropriate,” said the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico.
Gamez Lira, a forklift operator and DACA recipient who has called the U.S. his home since he was a baby, was detained after unmarked vehicles and plainclothes officers surrounded his car back in August. Two of his four U.S. citizen children were in the vehicle with him at the time. Video footage reviewed by Texas Monthly showed that one of his children began to weep from terror. “By this point,” the outlet continued, his wife Alejandra “rushed out of the house and headed toward the men, asking what was going on, yelling that her husband was covered by DACA. The men ignored her,” Texas Monthly continued.
The dad would subsequently spend more than 40 days in detention at the notorious Otero County Processing Center in New Mexico, “separated from his wife and four children, including a three-month-old infant with serious medical conditions,” the ACLU of New Mexico said. Following legal action and public outcry, he was released on September 25.
“I’m overwhelmed with joy and relief,” said Alejandra. “Paulo belongs with our family, not in a detention center. This has been the most difficult time of our lives, but we never lost hope that justice would prevail.”
@elpasomatters On the latest episode of the El Paso Matters Podcast, our journalists discuss the cases of Xochitl Santiago and Paulo Gamez Lira, two DACA recipients from El Paso who have been in ICE detention since August. Santiago was stopped at the airport on her way to a conference. Gamez Lira was pulled from his car in his Horizon City home in front of his children. Both grew up in El Paso, attended school here, built families and careers here. Yet they now face the threat of deportation to countries they barely know. Their cases raise questions about what comes next for recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals protection nationwide. Listen to the El Paso Matters Podcast at elpasomatters.org. 🔗 Tap the link in our bio. #elpaso#texas#tx#news#immigration
Then on October 1, Santiago also won her release following nearly two months of detention. The judge in her case stated “that her arrest and continued detention violate her rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution,” El Paso Matters reported. Santiago, who has called the U.S. her home since she was eight, had been thrown into detention after being swept up by ICE while on her way to board a domestic flight at El Paso International Airport on August 3. Officers “had taken her DACA card and were refusing to give it back,” her partner, Desiree Miller, told PBS.
But as the court said in its ruling, federal officials had “no legitimate interest in detaining Santiago. Tellingly, they have failed to even articulate an individualized reason for which she should be detained.” Continuing to detain the DACA holder “deprives her of her constitutional right to procedural due process under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the court continued.
“It’s been a hard two months – two months of not being able to talk, to see my sister,” Jose, Santiago’s brother, told El Paso Matters. “Jose said Santiago first called their mother when she was released, telling her something along the lines of ‘ya estoy afuera, no se preocupen,’ or, ‘I’m free now, don’t worry.’” El Paso Matters notes that Santiago’s detention had sparked protests outside the state, including in Florida, New Jersey and Michigan.
Their cases also mean much more than relief for just these two individuals, their legal advocates noted. Their releases “should send a message to President Donald Trump’s administration that it can’t arbitrarily detain individuals protected from deportation by law under the policy,” they told El Paso Matters.
“This is obviously a huge victory for Xóchitl … but it also sends a strong message to the government about its arbitrary and cruel arrests of DACA recipients across the country and so many other noncitizens who have built their lives here with the government’s permission,” said National Immigration Project’s Ellie Norton. “We hope the administration will cease unlawfully arresting individuals without due process of law,” Marisa Ong of the Singleton Schreiber law firm told El Paso Matters, “and that these victories send a message that there is a large legal community who will fight back when that occurs.”
Both DACA recipients were named in a new tracker from the Home Is Here campaign shining much-needed light on a number of DACA recipients who’ve been detained by federal immigration officials despite holding DACA protections. But while Gamez Lira and Santiago are free for now, other DACA recipients noted in the tracker remain in ICE custody
The administration “is outright ignoring the protections DACA was designed to provide and routinely targeted DACA recipients during immigration check-ins, at airports, and even outside their homes, placing them in removal proceedings,” the Home Is Here campaign said in a September 18 email received by America’s Voice. “These actions destabilize the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and their families, undermining the protection afforded by DACA and leaving entire communities living in fear of sudden family separation.”
In another victory for immigrants and their advocates, a beloved Muslim faith leader and hospital chaplain who has brought immense comfort to the families of dying children has also won his release after more than two months in ICE detention. Rolling Stone, which covered Ohioan Ayman Soliman’s ordeal in-depth, reported that his first action following his release was to go to his mosque to pray. “Just before 1:15 p.m., Adam Allen — one of the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital chaplains who was fired after publicly backing Soliman — said in a brief phone call, ‘He’s at a mosque,’” the outlet reported September 19.
In further proof that immigration officials were in the wrong for targeting the chaplain, his attorney said “he expects U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to fully reinstate his client’s legal asylum status, which was officially terminated by the Trump administration the month before his arrest.”
“Soliman and his advocates have long claimed that if the U.S. government were to return him to Egypt, he would face political retribution, or even death,” Rolling Stone continued. “For years, Soliman has built a reputation in Ohio and northern Kentucky for his work as a chaplain at his former employer, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, where he was widely celebrated for his work that included comforting the parents of severely ill or dying kids.”
“Every word that you’ve read about him from people who know him is a true word,” Rev. Elizabeth Diop, who worked alongside Soliman as a chaplain, told Rolling Stone in July. “He would do anything for you. Even in fucking detention, he’s counseling people who are locked up right now. He’s providing spiritual care; he’s the chaplain of his unit right now. He needs to be alive. He’s got work to do here, he’s got work to do to help heal the world.”
Like Allen, Diop was also fired for standing by her friend. She said she has no regrets. “Ayman’s worth it,” she said. “I lost my job, I kept my soul.”
In an interview with “Good Morning Columbus,” Soliman said he was floored by the level of support he received during his unjust detention. He said he thought maybe the Muslim community or medical community would come out to protest in his defense “once, and it’s over. But they kept doing that for the entire time – and I am beyond grateful.”
