Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz’s household was surprised and heartbroken when the 18-year-old was grabbed by immigration brokers whereas strolling his canine in Van Nuys simply days earlier than he was set to start out his senior yr at Reseda Constitution Excessive Faculty.
This week, his household was caught off-guard as soon as once more after they discovered that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had transferred him to Arizona with out notifying any kin, in accordance with the workplace of U.S. Rep. Luz Rivas (D-North Hollywood), which spoke to his household and reviewed ICE detention data.
Guerrero-Cruz was moved out of the Adelanto Detention Facility in San Bernardino County late Monday night time and brought to a holding facility in Arizona in the midst of the desert, in accordance with the congresswoman’s workplace.
On Tuesday night time, he was scheduled to be transferred to Louisiana, a main hub for deportation flights, however on the final minute he was taken off the airplane and despatched again to Adelanto, the place he’s at present being held.
“Benjamin and his household deserve solutions behind ICE’s inconsistent and chaotic decision-making course of, together with why Benjamin was initially transferred to Arizona, why he was slated to be transferred to Louisiana afterward, and why his household wasn’t notified of his whereabouts by ICE all through this course of,” Rivas stated in a press release.
On Tuesday, Rivas launched a invoice that might require ICE to inform an instantaneous member of the family of a detainee inside 24 hours of a detainee’s switch. Presently, ICE is required to inform a member of the family solely within the case of a detainee’s demise.
“Benjamin’s story of being detained and despatched throughout state traces with out warning or notification is like many different detainees in Los Angeles and throughout the nation,” Rivas stated. “Many immigrant households in my district have no idea the whereabouts of their family members after they’re detained by ICE.”
The Division of Homeland Safety didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. The company beforehand acknowledged that Guerrero-Cruz was awaiting deportation to Chile after overstaying his visa, which required him to depart america on March 15, 2023.
Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz, proven at college, is an avid soccer participant and loving older brother, in accordance with his household.
(Rita Silva)
Guerrero-Cruz was arrested Aug. 8 and held in downtown L.A. for per week, throughout which era he was briefly taken on an unexplained journey to a detention middle in Santa Ana earlier than being transferred to Adelanto on Aug. 15, in accordance with a former instructor who visited him in custody.
His expertise of being pingponged round completely different services is frequent amongst these being detained in what the Trump administration is billing as the biggest deportation effort in American historical past.
This pattern can be mirrored in ICE’s flight information. The company performed 2,022 home switch flights from Could via July — representing a 90% improve from the identical interval final yr, in accordance with a extensively cited database of flights created by immigrant rights advocate Tom Cartwright.
Cartwright posited in his July report that this uptick may very well be associated to a “have to optimize mattress area as detention numbers have ballooned from 39,152 on 29 December to 56,945 on 26 July.”
Jorge-Mario Cabrera, spokesperson for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights L.A., referred to as the Trump administration’s detention insurance policies merciless, saying it seems that they’re detaining individuals for so long as doable and “transferring them from place to put for no purpose aside from as a result of they’ll.”
“The truth that these dumbfounding transfers in the midst of the night time trigger chaos, confusion, and minimizes entry to authorized illustration doesn’t appear to trouble them one bit,” he stated in a press release.
Susham M. Modi, an immigration lawyer primarily based in Houston, stated he had witnessed an uptick within the frequency of transfers amongst these not too long ago detained by ICE.
“[Detainees are] additionally being usually transferred to the place there’s much less legal professionals,” he stated. “I’ve seen consults the place they’ve been transferred to Oklahoma, the place it is extremely laborious to seek out an lawyer that may do, for instance, federal court docket litigation.”
Though households can use ICE’s On-line Detainee Locator to seek for family members, it isn’t at all times updated, and a few households have no idea use it, Modi stated. When detainees are transferred, they usually can’t make outgoing calls from the detention facility till somebody has deposited cash into their account — one other hurdle for maintaining relations up to date on their whereabouts, he added.
