If the jailing of Americans for such skimpy rationales means anything, it is that American democracy is swirling down the drain.
4
If Mr. Galicia's mother had not lied, he wouldn't have been in this predicament. Lies have consequences.
3
Any American citizen or legal resident improperly detained by one of these checkpoints should be paid $1000/day from the 25th hour onward.
That’s the true America way. You can’t rely on good character or a functioning bureaucracy. Everything must have a cost.
4
ICE is using irrational imprisonment in order to terrify both citizens and non-citizens of Hispanic descent. It is deliberate.
3
This is 100% the fault of his mother for muddling his documents and creating uncertainty about his nationality. I don’t know he circumstances of his initial detention but I don’t think that CBP can be made completely responsible for this one. I hope he can get his documents sorted now and get a passport so he can travel!
You're delusional. This is on ICE, particularly given all the documentation provided and the amount of time.
2
For starters, I take exception to the NYT wording: "the administration’s zero-tolerance approach sometimes collides with the messy, unorthodox lives of mixed-status families, whose paperwork is often legitimate but incomplete or faulty." I'd say it's ICE's messy, unorthodox, incomplete and faulty procedures that led to this. The citizen was kept incommunicado for a month until advocates and media got some attention. White people in some states are allowed to kill with "Stand your ground" but if you don't look white or are heard speaking something other than English, you can be at least hassled and may be locked up, incommunicado, or even killed.
ACLU has a webpage on your rights within the 100 mile border claimed by CBP, a border zone this article unfortunately calls "a secondary layer of border security".
Canada reports a ten-fold increase in 5 years, in the number of U.S. citizens claiming refugee status, trying to keep the families together and/or to avoid deportation from the U.S., themselves.
2
Folks, I have already planned as a US Citizen of Hispanic origin to renew my US Passport AND obtain a US Passport Card to carry with me in addition to my driver's license and a I will be inquiring about carrying a copy of my birth certificate with the official seal of the issuer.
Because if I can detained indefinitely just because a wanna-be-brown-shirt ICE officer has a deportation warrant with someone who has the same name as me, I will not go with them easily; I'll go down fighting.
If you are OK with people being detained for not committing crimes under the penal code (not the immigration code, they are separate in this country and immigration is NOT A CRIMINAL ACT IN THE EYES OF THE LAW), then you will be next. It's all a matter of time.
This is how fascism starts. It happened to my family in Spain, and then again in the Dominican Republic. They got to put a bullet in the back of my great-grandfather in Spain, all in the name of fighting commies; they tortured my father for 8 months, murdered his comrades and numerous family members for not kow-towing to the fascist rapist in chief's whims in the DR during the 60s. Yeah, two times my family has been violated by fascist in power.
And it can happen to you to.
7
What has happened to our Republic. The situation is our of hand. Trump and Mitch McConnell must lose their re-election bids.
5
Do we all need to start carrying our birth certificates, passports, and social security cards around with us? Or do we get a pass if we "look white?" Or should we go to some kind of federal ID card?
3
So his mother made false statements on two different official documents. Not making a great case for the law-abiding nature of illegal aliens.
4
Sue Sue Sue the pants off them. There has to be consequences for this sort of injustice.
2
I've been through these checkpoints many times, I'm Mexican-American, third generation--most of my grandparents were Americans. I have two advanced degrees, could be considered middle-to-upper middle class, so I have class privilege, but I'm also obviously brown.
I've been hassled at these checkpoints. I've had my car searched by agents and dogs. They've pulled everything out of my trunk. I've had them ask me if I'm an American over and over again "to be sure." I had them try to put a sniffer dog in my backseat with my terrified cat who was a in a carrier traveling with me-- despite my protests that the sniffer dog may harm my pet-- they pulled the dog out after my cat decided he wasn't going out without a fight and tried to slash the dog's face. I had them question my nephew (who looks white) if I was really his aunt and why was he traveling with me. His answer "Uh, because I'm taking a road trip with my aunt?"
I always carry my passport when I'm going through the checkpoint because this young man's nightmare is my own. And its been this way for years-- but clearly things are getting worse.
I'm an American. With American parents. With several American grandparents. With three degrees, two of them advanced and from Ivy-league schools. But I'm brown and I get treated poorly at checkpoints. Imagine how hard it is for the Average brown American? Why should it be that way?
21
3 days max, it should have taken a few hours at most. But 3 days should have been enough time to confirm he belonged right where he was. Indeed he deserves a sizable settlement for essentially being thrown in jail for almost a month with no due process.
7
Should verifying Mr. Galicia's documentation taken so long?
1
I lived in the Rio Grande Valley - 87% of Texas/US citizens living in that part of our country are of Latino descent. Many have immediate family in Mexico - grandparents, parents, siblings, etc. How many more U.S. citizens will be detained? This is ridiculous.
6
The main issue with this story for me is the length of time he was detained. Traveling with a Mexican tourist visa and an illegal undocumented sibling, was confusing and I don't fault the agents for detaining him.
The length of time he was detained and the fact that his case needed media attention for him to be released is deeply troubling. It appears that no ICE follow up or investigation was done once the agents detained him.
Furthermore I get chills thinking that Americans need to carry their official papers on them. I thought this was the land of the free...
49
@D. Renner Yes. It is like the nazi era... back then they started by criminalizing a part of the German population, then they sent them to live in ghettos...Right now they have already completed those first and second steps...they criminalizes migrants and send them to detention camps without any right...What is going to happen next?
8
Those who held him without bothering to review the evidence he presented should spend exactly the same amount of time under the same conditions in a holding cell.
This should apply to ICE agents, prosecutors, police officers everywhere. It is the only way to combat the excesses of the "justice" system.
5
This guy is about to make so much money from the inevitable lawsuit. Wow wee.
1
By way of being born in Texas and THAT makes him an American citizen.
3
I see a 7 digit settlement
4
Inland border checkpoints where they ask the occupants if they are US citizens -- wanna bet the only people being asked are brown? Who wants to bet that I, a fat old while lady, would be ushered on by with a wave and a smile??
9
He is a US citizen. He should not have been detained.
That said, he was surrounded by a number of circumstances that a reasonable person might decide don't change this fact. But border officials are not paid to make judgment calls on what's reasonable. For them it's a binary world, and Mr. Galicia fell on one side of the line.
What he's really guilty of, by using that Mexican document, is taking part in a long-standing system of fuzzing up the boundaries between what is legal and what is not. Everyone involved, politicians and employers, GOP and Democrats, put up with this for a number of decades and many of them thought it was a great idea.
That's why we ought to have a firm border, but also enforce it with maximum compassion for the tens of thousands of people who have built their lives around our off, hypocritical system.
If we're serious we prosecute employers. If not we simply revert to the previous status quo until we are.
6
@Bob T I agree. By all means prosecute employers, including President Trump.
4
Sooner or later an ICE or CPB agent is going to push the limit with someone who is armed and we are going to have a nasty incident, with dead civilians and federal agents because of a lack of judgment. Certainly there were ambiguities and inconsistencies is this case but none so complicated they could not be resolved in a few hours. This, like taking kids from their parents with no mechanism for tracking and reuniting subsequently, either reflects such gross incompetence that the perpetrators should be fired or deliberate policies that should be punished with the harshest application of the law including prosecution for kidnapping. With family in law enforcement I know inevitably one runs into grey areas where interpretation requires thought. But a smart law enforcement officer looks to minimize possible complications not only for the benefit of the individual involved but out of respect for the agency. It would be appropriate, though not legal, to lock up the officers for 3 weeks, without pay, then fire them for having abandoned their job for 3 weeks. Of course they would sue, and rightly. But they just engaged in the same behavior. Without a doubt some of the earliest confusion is attributable to the mother's failure to recognize she put her son in jeopardy. But that in no way excuses the incredible failure of the agencies in question and the need for serious consequences for the officers involved. The real villain may be Stephen Miller but the officers need discipline.
10
Anyone who knows the history of the American West knows that not only the indigenous population, but also the Spanish-speaking population, arrived long before the anglo population. Moreover these states were all part of Mexico until they were taken in what Gen. U.S. Grant called "the most unjust war ever waged by a stronger country against a weaker one", and he should know, he was a veteran of that war.
Spanish has been the main language of the RGV for the past 400 years. And yet today, the descendents of the two original groups have to carry reams of paperwork around to avoid being deported as "aliens" by the recent arrivals, who have declared themselves the true owners of the land.
There are people whose ancestors have been in what are today Texas, NM and Arizona since before the USA existed, and yet live in fear of being deported on racial and linguistic grounds. Insane.
17
@Damien O’Driscoll Are we teaching history based on long ago facts as best possible, referring to contemporaneous reports and documentation, and studying archaeology and sites... or are we teaching a fantasy version that culminates in annual fireworks on the 4th of July ? A lot of the ethnic tensions being animated today are the result of willful erasure and denial of the experiences of various groups, that are rendered invisible by the declaration "they don't love America" and other accusations and insults.... for people who love and serve America despite its flaws and checkered history. How do we recognize Native Americans in our official events and celebrations ? How do we honor their heritage as part of the fabric and foundation of our country? They have paid the heaviest price for the freedom and prosperity of today's America.
1
@Damien O’Driscoll
I can make that argument for any country in the world, with the exception of Africa.
Perhaps all humans should go back there. It would do the rest of the planet a world of good.
1
Yet more evidence that our borders have become a political football and the referees make up the rules as they go along.
4
I've driven through the Falfurrias many times, most recently two months ago. I'm a middle-aged white woman with a pronounced Texas drawl. When I'm stopped, I roll down my window. The agent asks me if I'm an American citizen. I say yes and am waved through. I'm never asked to show a birth certificate, visa or even a valid drivers license.
OK, now convince me that what happened to Mr. Galicia isn't profiling.
21
@TexasTabby
Of course it's profiling. That by itself is not a problem IMO. Whether you call it profiling or investigational prioritization. Happens all the time and must obviously happen, as long as resources are limited. Otherwise nothing ever gets done.
What is not excusable is that they kept him AFTER they had the evidence that he is a citizen.
There must be consequences for this, severe ones.
6
ICE did their job. Let's be clear, this started with the mother manipulating the system. Whenever you manipulate the law, work around the law, sooner or later it will catch up.
ICE did not detain this person just for the sake of doing it, they are doing there job. If the documents are unclear, then so be it. As an American citizen try giving an expired DL and other questionable documents and see how long you will stay in jail unless someone bails you out. This was no witch hunt.
17
@BTB The boy did not present control officers with expired documents. Does it really take 26 day to verify that someone's American birth certificate, recently-issued state ID and social security number, all of which were presented to officers and can be easily located in state data-bases, is correct?
26
@BTB, perhaps, but does it really take a month to verify the documents?
14
So, ICE has the right to detain American citizens from traveling freely about the country? No, they did not do their job.
28
The report uses the word "confused" to suggest that the agents made an honest mistake. What mistake? They profiled the people in the car, and they detained an American citizen. It doesn't take 26 days to check on someone's paperwork, since this kid was already in the database.
Someone in that chain of command just wanted to be evil. God knows what would have happened to this kid if the media hadn't gotten involved. Would he have died of a treatable disease? Been beaten? Been deported south and just let out of the bus with nowhere to go?
Trump has authorized gung-ho ICE officers who really just want to harass and torture people. As a naturalized U.S. citizen I had to deal with the INS, the latter did all it could to make my life miserable, even though I was a law-abiding, legal immigrant who was gainfully employed and paying my share of taxes. Now ICE feels empowered to make war on American citizens simply because of the way they look.
Nothing new here. The president sets the moral standards for the country--what else should we expect?
40
C'mon colleges and universities. Give this young man who "spends his time studying and playing sports" a 4-year scholarship.
12
Shameful.
6
I see a bunch of people here condemning ICE while completely ignoring the rest of what is stated in this article. Of course it is unfortunate that this kid was detained, but he knowingly traveled through an immigration checkpoint with his illegal little brother and the kid was traveling with a fraudulent tourist visa from a foreign country.
I'm no expert in immigration law, but I think a good course of action in order to avoid being suspected of being a foreign national would be to NOT carry documentation on your person that states you are a foreign national.
11
@GT I agree with detaining an individual with suspected fraudulent documents. But for a month? It takes a month to verify the veracity of documents?
25
@GT
Unfortunate when it happens to someone else - what about if it had happened to you or a family member?
2
@GT Do you think police would have ever detained a 18 years old boy (one month!!) for having a fake ID so he could drink alcohol? Of course not.
5
We are now living in a Police State created by a government that has fomented hatred against anyone who is not white. Very sad. Plus, maybe the ICE agents need a refresher course on how to spot "fake" papers?
27
There is no course on how to spot fake papers. The rule of thumb is that if you don’t like the people you don’t believe the papers. And they are predisposed to like polite white people.
So there you go.
5
And so it begins. In the land of the free where travel between states is free and transparent no American carries papers. The only ID that most Americans carry is their drivers license which is not acceptable as ID by government agencies. So the average American confronting an ICE road block has no way to prove they are citizens. And even if one is prescient enough to carry backup documentation like a birth certificate ones freedom now depends on the opinion of a stranger as to whether your documents are “authentic”. And opinions are like noses, everyone has one.
In this story the citizen was released after 26 days because of the efforts of his mother and a reporter. Absent those efforts he could have been held for years or in fact deported. As could happen to any American citizen today based on the whim of an anonymous official at a lonely checkpoint. And what would happen if the citizen were a legally registered firearms owner with a carry permit? If they don’t believe the birth certificate they will not believe the carry permit. And what if the citizen is on the way to a hospital or an important job meeting and does not want to be detained without a warrant on the basis of an opinion? What if the citizen refuses to comply with what could be a future stint of a year or so in jail for an ICE mistake?
Essentially these roadblocks are saying that Americans no longer have any rights, that they live at the mercy of road agents. Will you let them stop you?
79
Surely there will be a civil lawsuit that names not only the offending ICE officers, but their supervisors and the head of DHS for the protocols that permit unlawful imprisonment of a US citizen. Imagine if this was practiced in Northern states and Michigan or Minnesota or North Dakota residents were unlawfully incarcerated with similar frequency. Finally, there should be a criminal charge of kidnapping laid against the ICE officers and their supervisors..
25
@On Therideau
Surely the brother who is here illegally will be deported, and a citizen that respects the law like you would support that deportation, right?
Finally, traveling with a Mexican visa stating conflicting information that he was actually born in Mexico was obviously a factor in this confusion.
10
@asdfj: if it actually took the agents 26 days to figure out the discrepancy, then they are either incompetent, stupid, or both. I'm going with another option: malicious.
3
@asdfj ...but it took one month for them to free him!...that is too much even for someone who is suspect of murder...you can not detained anyone such a long time without solid evidence
2
back in the 90's I applied for a passport for the first time. I went to the local U.S. State Department office and filled out the form. the man behind the counter asked for two pieces of photo ID. I showed him my driver's license, but the only other photo ID I had was my Costco card. He accepted it as ID, and I was issued a passport.
We've come a long way from Costco cards being accepted as ID. Mr. Galicia's birth certificate, state ID card and Social Security card weren't enough for him. Just what should we American citizens be carrying? What's enough? Or, does it only matter if you're Hispanic?
38
@Ms. Pea: you received a passport without a previously expired one, certificate of naturalization or a sealed birth certificate?
I don't believe that's possible. The two other forms of ID are there in support of the BC or passport.
Proof of birth in the US or naturalization is required to get started in the US passport system.
3
@Paolo Agreed.
1
Be afraid, be very afraid.
They locked up a kid for a month because they could.
Monday in KC, ICE - without a warrant - broke the car window of a man they wanted to arrest and dragged him out of his car while he was trying to drive his daughter to the doctor. WITHOUT A WARRANT. All on film. In front of the police.
ICE, like the current resident of the White House believe they are above the law.
46
Sounds like grounds for a lawsuit or am I wrong?
16
Yes. Legal immunity.
1
@Bobotheclown
Wrongful Imprisonment!
While I can feel personal compassion for the unfortunate circumstances this young man endured and the fear the mother had--if you live a lie you always live under a cloud. I fail to understand what is so hard to understand about this. I would ask how many of you have tried to cross an International border by giving passport control two conflicting documents (neither of which is a passport) and one of which is an out right lie.
6
@Frank Ayers He wasn't crossing an international border. He was 60 miles north of the border and had no need for a passport.
19
@Frank Ayers You have a point here, I concede that. But then it took 28 days to verify he is American? What documents do you carry, or prepared to carry, to show you are an American citizen, if you are one? And then what if the ICE agent "feels" they are fakes?
2
My heart bleeds for ICE.
1
Hopefully his attorneys can help him get his paperwork in order. Get the birth cert amended, get him a passport.
What happened to him was not his fault.
10
When I was young I never thought to carry MY documents when I traveled within the US. And this includes both Republican and Democratic administrations. There has been s marked free fall into the politics of hate in our current administration.
We all need to push back against this kind of discrimination.
29
@Joyce F did you regularly travel with a brother living here illegally, and a fraudulent tourist visa from a foreign country? Perhaps that is the difference.
5
@GT Don't think that is the difference. The point is traveling within the US is supposed not to required any documents. Has the law been changed on this?
6
@GT … don't try to excuse the fact that this young man was locked up for a month!!
4
The US needs a National ID card. Our SSN blue paper was great in 1940. If we had something with a chip it would at least be more difficult to copy.
1
@Stefan, maybe Russia could advise us on how to implement a national ID card, if they're not too busy rigging our elections.
1
@Stefan no. We just need less arbitrary racist fascism.
3
@Stefan, No we don't. This is the point about US liberties: we are free to travel within the country without "papers".
Of course this seems to be eroding quickly, but internal travel papers are a toehold which oppressive governments are happy to require. This should be resisted.
2
It's deplorable that it takes the light of day to release an American citizen from federal confinement, specifically based on racial profiling, despite clear evidence that he is an American citizen.
How are we, as a nation, going to be able to reconcile this? How long will it take for the damage this president is doing to heal?
In the end, I hope that the nations of the world who strive for equality and justice can forgive us. In all honesty, I, for one, won't. It's the fault of the people who voted for him. His election has exposed our soft, WHITE underbelly. We have a long history of abuses of democracy, and this is just another list item.
I shed tears over it.
11
We can cry, we can vote, and we can fight.
1
Detention when no crime was committed is common to what we used to call third world countries and brutal dictatorships. While few want to throw the borders open, I would hope most of us want to see an end to this slide into government without oversight. This needs to be righted by removing our corrupt, racist administration. We are better than that. We are America, and we need to restore what America stands for.
18
Ivana and Melania Trump both were credibly accused of illegally entering and working in America. Both became naturalized American citizens by fraudulently concealing those facts.
When are they both going to be arrested, imprisoned and deported?
39
@Blackmamba - I agree. I'm sure at some point Melania Trump was here illegally. I'd love to see her immigration file so we could see how when you have money like Trump you can get away with anything.
She was here illegally and now we've got her parents here.
9
This is just another example of the ever increasing incompetence in this administration. ICE can't help but be a heartless, even mean, organization when it's run by a heartless and mean administration. ICE can't help but be lawless and incompetent when it's run by a lawless and incompetent administration. The buck stops in the Oval Office.
17
False imprisonment and kidnapping. He should sue the government for a million dollars for each day in confinement, and the agents responsible should be prosecuted. Otherwise the post-freedom state has been established.
12
A month in custody because you’re brown and ICE officials assume you are undocumented is not okay. Does this young man get recompense for the psychological trauma or for the month of incarceration for no reason? If there is no consequence for this, what’s to prevent federal officials from rounding up masses of brown people and keeping them in detention (jail) until they can produce a birth certificate or passport?
19
And how do you produce a passport or a birth certificate while you are in jail and not allowed to make a phone call or communicate with the outside world? How does anyone?
2
...and I'm sure that no racial profiling occurs at these checkpoints.
16
It's never a good idea to give people/organizations power without oversight.
26
There is oversight. It reports that they are happy with the way things are going and to keep up the good work.
Do you think the problem might be something other than a lack of oversight?
ICE should face up to their screw up.
But the real responsibility for the mess up is the mother's.
She should have known, and cared, that in this political climate, with a cruel ignorant at the helm, her son's proof of citizenship was on her shoulders.
Heaven forbid that anything would have happened to her son while being held.
That would have been on her.
9
This makes me terrified to let my teens travel by themselves or go out by themselves. By virtue of being Latino, the militarized ICE could put them in a facility, and I wouldn’t be able to find them or help them.
13
@Wilder The problem starts with TRUMP.
10
@Wilder the responsibility is with ICE and ICE alone. They are the ones with the power to detain and deport. Always blaming the mother rather than the men with guns.
5
Pay attention closely here readers. Basically ICE can simply refuse to accept lawful documents proving citizenship if they want to.. and can detain a US citizen simply by stating that they think said documents are fakes... detain said citizen.. and then hold them for nearly a month simply on their own unfounded assessments.
This should scare every American.. because it means any demographic can be freely detained just because ICE says so.
ICE needs a complete and exhaustive reform... because they are essentially operating along the same lines as secret police services in authoritarian governments.
127
@Chuck Carrying two documents contradicting each other, no passport and in the company of an undocumented migrant who agreed to be deported--I think they did their job--the family did not.
17
What percentage of Americans own a passport? I lived many years near the US-Mexico border and never had one. We regularly crossed the border for shopping. I've sailed through those road stops in NM hundreds of times - never had to show a single document. Of course my whole family has blue eyes.
26
@Frank Ayers Why does a US citizen need a passport to travel WITHIN the US. He wasn't travelling internationally.
15
Wow! When all the background facts were finally made public, it sounds like immigration officers were doing their jobs well. What took so long to get these details out to the public?
12
@Richard Winchester
Doing their jobs "well"...?
Detaining this boy for four weeks??
6
@Richard Winchester the reason is that the truth doesn't fit the narrative that the biased media wants to report.
Far more popular to blame ICE, without ever mentioning the reality of the situation or that this US citizen was carrying paperwork stating he wasn't a US citizen.
2
Holding the US citizen for a month is not doing their job well. Apparently it’s only because of the public and media backlash that they let him go, otherwise who knows how much longer he would have stayed.
I agree that the onus is on the mother for some very stupid moves. I’m sure they have learned their lessons. It’s unfortunate that the younger brother will probably not be able to come back for a very long time, plus the mother is now at risk... very unfortunate errors indeed!
4
Amendment Four to the United States Constitution requires authorities, according to the Supreme Court, "to pursue reasonable avenues of investigation" under circumstances of personal seizure without a warrant.
Four weeks is too unreasonably long to verify the authenticity of a document. Here we have just one more article of impeachment for Putin II, and another reason to be utterly disgusted with this criminal government.
62
It shouldn't have taken so long to resolve, but Mr. Galacia was carrying ID's showing that he was born in the U.S. and that he was born in Mexico. I can't fault the ICE agents for concluding that some of that documentation was false (which it was) and, not knowing which was accurate, detaining him.
23
I can’t fault you with a complete understanding of constitutional rights. Or legal procedure. Or law enforcement. Or human decency.
5
@Joel: How long does it take to make a phone call to the state of Texas to verify that the ID card it issued is legitimate? A month? While a citizen sits in detention? Would you like to sit in jail for a month, waiting for someone to make a couple of phone calls on your behalf? Remember "innocent until proven guilty" and "due process"? Apparently you have forgotten these things. ICE is on a slippery slope if it is allowed to continue to operate without any oversight.
40
This article is an example of sins of omission, which is disappointing, the Times should adhere to higher standards.
After 9/11, the practice of allowing people to return on the basis of driving license or Social Security card could no longer be continued. Congress has demanded this change.
For a very long time, perhaps 12 years, US citizens are required to carry a passport even when traveling to Mexico, Canada and Bahamas. Only way to avoid this is to get into "Global Entry" or similar programs.
A fair comment is that these programs cost about $100 for 5 years, allowing people to pay the $100 over 5 years may make it more accessible to young people, and lower income people.
6
@W Apte Please read the article before you post. No one was traveling to or from Mexico. No borders were crossed. These kids were driving from one town in Texas to another town in Texas. Having a 'Global Entry' card does NOT help you when traveling within the USA.
20
@W Apte Unfortunately, in this case the citizen in question wasn't passing through the US-Mexico border, but a checkpoint inside the US, while traveling from one US town to another US town, in no way passing through Mexico.
I think it's not unreasonable to expect being able to travel inside the country without a passport.
12
@Mike speaking of reading the article, neither does carrying a fraudulent Mexican tourist visa while traveling with your illegal younger brother.
1
It should not have taken four weeks to correct this mistake. Anyone could have called the county in Texas where Mr. Galicia claimed he was born and asked whether his birth certificate was genuine. That would take mere minutes and he would have been released. Immigration officers clearly should not be judging the authenticity of documents. They seem to be detaining Hispanic people and asking questions later. That is profiling, pure and simple, and is wrong. Assuming everyone in a car is illegal because some might be is poor policy. I hope Mr. Galicia will sue the immigration department. They need to change their ways.
64
@Ms. Pea
Exactly. I could see them detaining him while they verify his documents if they felt a genuine concern. But that should take hours are most.. NOT WEEKS!.
We live in the electronic information age, where almost all government issued documents are on databases that can be looked up in real time by appropriate authorities.
ICE did not verify in a timely manner... because they did not care. They detained a male non-white US citizen and simply decided in the moment that they were illegal.
12
There was a recent case in Michigan where a citizen was on the verge of deportation - he was even a veteran! Another case where a few phone calls could have cleared it up. But ICE and CPB are trained as law enforcement, not as administrators, so that is not their mindset.
8
@Ms. Pea
It could take a month because his mother used a false name on the birth certificate. It could actually be impossible. There's probably more to the conclusion of this story than we know.
3
What this story shows is that US born citizen can be detained by CBP or ICE simply by their saying they believe your documents are fake. This indicates that there is no oversight of these agencies & if the media hadn't reported on this injustice, Francisco Galicia, an American citizen would still be in detention. Apparently, CBP & ICE don't believe in upholding the Constitution of the United States (even though they likely swore to do just that).
50
@Mike the kid had a Mexican tourist visa, stating he was born in Mexico, it is little wonder they suspected something was false, it was.
6
They took an oath to obey Donald Trump and that is what they are doing. I don’t see what the problem is. Don’t you want to make America great again?
So they held him for a month? I don’t understand
2
The President now deserves his own dry run in captivity for 30 days for the feel of it. I understand that experience is fundamentally the best teacher.
13
Why stop at 30 days? Don’t you want him to really learn?
1
My thoughts can be summed up in one word to Mr. Galicia:
Sue!
19
ICE has legal immunity. Do you have any other single word solutions?
It’s unfortunate that this you fellow had to be detained and a month seems like a long time to get this straightened out. If you look at the details, detaining him makes some sense. He has a state issued ID card, but that doesn’t prove legal residence. No mention of RealID, so I suspect the ID card was wasn’t a RealID. He has federally issued Mexican ID that contradicts his city/county issued birth certificate. His brother with whom he is traveling is a Mexican national and is in the country illegally, as is his mother. His birth certificate has errors that were introduced by his mother as she was gaming the system. To top it all off, this kid lives on the border and knows he can get pulled over at any time. Talk about taking unnecessary risks.
This story illustrates the necessity for a secure, forgery proof national ID card for the US.
16
@Joe C.
I have a state ID and it has always functioned as proper identification for everything except international travel. That he has a state ID is really no different than if he had a driver's license.
6
@Joe C.
Forgery proof? that's a joke.
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We need a national ID card with photo and biometric markers --just like nearly every other country on earth.
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@Teduardo Traveling without a passport and in the company of an undocumented sibling is not a good idea
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@Teduardo
Like... what countries?
"every other country on earth" is not a few of them.
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@Frank Ayers, I have a passport, but I don't think I need it when traveling from my home city in Texas to visit my mother in another city in Texas. He had a state ID that one cannot get without a Social Security number.
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How many other citizens are still being held because their cases haven’t attracted national attention?
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Is it because they are handsome and rich?
Cheech Marin's fantasy(Born in East LA) came true in real life; however it wasn't very comical for the victim Francisco Galicia. Legally detention equals arrest, and if recent accounts by legislators are true conditions in ICE facilities for food, space, sanitation, or even potable drinking water, do not even comply with court ordered standards for county "jails". This American Citizen was detained/arrested for almost 28 days and totally denied all due process and the ICE/Border Patrol agents who did this are immune from legal penalties or any oversight from the victim. This is a clear sign that the United States as a country has entered into a new policy of totalitarian detention camps for all non-Caucasian people.
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First they came for the non Caucasians...
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Regarding document checks, we had a similar experience. It was six a.m. on a weekday morning. We were awakened by a loud banging on our dorm room door. Two officers stood outside and demanded, "Documents. Show us your documents." We are not Hispanic. We are U.S. citizens. But then, this was the Soviet Union in the eighties. (We were graduates on an IREX scholarship studying in the then USSR).
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A citizen spent a month in an unofficial jail, on an invented charge, held by a questionable political group given broad authority and little oversight.
If this was another country, we'd be shouting about human rights' abuses and calling the government fascist.
Unfortunately, the people who need to wake up to this reality won't truly understand it until it's happening to them too. And, at that point, it will be too late.
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It may take awhile, but all those people who need to be woken up are going to be awake. They are going to go through their own personal wake up experience and learn first hand what they have wrot. I just wish it would happen sooner and that I would be alive to see it. But most of us will be gone by then. But we can dream.
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This is just another example about how racial profiling destroys lives.
It's also a glimpse into America's future under Donald Trump.
Even if you are a U.S. citizen -- being a person of color is a liability.
Be afraid. But be prepared.
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In other words, only white people are citizens. Everyone else has fake papers.
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@Bobotheclown
Be realistic. How many cases of racial profiling involving white people have you heard of in America?
You're in denial.
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It seems that these border patrol agents engaged in racial profiling. They should all lose their jobs.
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It is incredible that boarder agents have discretion to reject lawful documents without any attempt to verify their judgment and throw a US citizen in jail indefinitely. This young man was fortunate to have assistance from his family and media. He sure could not count on Due Process or the government for help. What an utter mess!
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In this story and the many before about immigrant detention, I am just flabbergasted at the lack of oversight and accountability regarding ICE and Border Patrol. It seems clear as day that the system we have is not working. I am not in favor of “open borders” but like most Americans I can’t believe these agencies are so badly run and held to no account.
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@Treetop According to Dallas News, his mom applied for a visitors visa for him, even though he was a US citizen.
Either the visa application stated false facts, or his US citizenship documents were forged.
Resolving this situation obviously would take time.
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@W Apte : Time, yes -- maybe as many as a few hours. Nearly a month? This indicates that the agents had no interest in getting it right.
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He will not get a dime suing ICE, they are above the law.
What a mess. The boy is a US citizen but his documents were questionable. The border patrol can only make decisions based on what they are given. I’m annoyed at the mother who got the boy into this situation by not correcting his documents and failing to get him a passport.
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@C
I'm guessing people in your circle don't have to travel around carrying a social security card, a birth certificate and other documents in case someone demands to see them.
Wonder why...
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@C doesn't matter. border patro could have LET HIM TALK TO SOMEONE AND FIGURE THIS OUT. this is racial targeting. plenty of u.s. citizens WHO ARE WHITE wouldn't be hassled this way, or would be allowed to communicate with family and figure this mess out well before 26 days detention.
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@C--What's frightening is that Mr. Galicia was extended no presumption of innocence. Regardless of his documents, the officers assumed he was illegal and took him into custody. That is racial profiling, and should be illegal. The policies and practices of our immigration department are what should annoy you.
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Francisco Erwin Galicia should get some good lawyers and sue Immigration.
Mistakes are expensive, and they should pay for time and suffering of a U. S. citizen.
Immigration has become the equivalent of Jim Crow laws against Hispanics. That should be ended.
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Baloney. I’m Hispanic and I don’t feel threatened at all. Others than some social justice, affirmative action policies, there are certainly no laws that affect me solely on my last name. Is mandated preferential treatment your idea of Jim Crow in action? While it’s true that I feel under more suspicion from fellow citizens that I did 40 years ago, that comes with the territory of having anywhere between 11-20 million illegals (mostly Hispanic, btw) in the country.
Clean that mess up, stem the flow of illegals across the border and your feelings of Jim Crow discrimination will evaporate.
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@Dr. Ricardo Garres Valdez
He was carrying a Mexican visa stating that he was born in Mexico.
He was traveling with a brother here illegally.
This "mistake" was a simple case of reaping what you sow.
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Yeah and ICE agents need a month —rather than a few hours—to verify.
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These checkpoints, well away from the border, should scare every American.
They can be established anywhere within 100 miles of the border, which means anywhere in New York City, Los Angeles, almost anywhere in Florida or Connecticut and many other states, and if the border agents aren’t satisfied with your “papers,” away you go to detention.
Have we really gotten to the point where government agents can demand “papers” from American citizens in their own country?
Apparently yes... and if government agents don’t like them, too bad for you.
Considering many Americans think it’s not a problem that hundreds of unarmed men are shot and killed every year by police, I guess detaining them seems like no big deal.
“Land of the free?”
Hardly.
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Papers! May I see your papers please?
Oh, you don’t have them?
Who are you really?
Sticking to that citizenship story?
Well, we have ways to make you talk...
Thanks again to all the Trump voters who have been so instrumental in making America great again. By the way, may I see your papers?
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@Objectively Subjective
The article states that he had a Mexican visa stating conflicting information that he was actually born in Mexico.
And he was traveling with a brother here illegally so you obviously support deporting the brother as you're in favor of enforcing the rule of law, right?
Your username is quite apt.
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@Bobotheclown
And you call this making America great again???
You clearly need to get out more.
“Guilty, until proven innocent “.......
Another step towards a fascist state the “right” so desires. Truly infuriating.
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Mistakes and confusion can happen, particularly in a chaotic system and overzealous individuals, however, does that remove basic rights and due process? Why was the young man not allowed to contact family? The immigration problem is but one symptom of a system of federal governance that is on a self-destructive course.
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The answer is “yes”, all fascist systems are based on the removal of basic rights and due process. That is why some people voted against the fascist takeover in 2016. I do hope the winners of that election are happy now. And I hope that they are stopped at a road block soon. Very soon.
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