A U.S.-born American citizen being held at the request of immigration officials in Florida has been released amid worry by his mother and advocates that the state’s anti-immigrant fervor could lead to the same happening to other Americans.
Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, 20, had been held about 24 hours after he was arrested on Wednesday by Florida authorities under a state immigration law a judge temporarily blocked. The law allows Florida authorities to arrest people who have entered the state and are suspected to have come to the country illegally.
Lopez-Gomez was in a vehicle with others who had traveled from Georgia and while heading to a job in Florida.
“I feel fine leaving that place, I felt bad in there. They didn’t give us anything to eat all day yesterday,” Lopez-Gomez said in Spanish, according to the Florida Phoenix, which first reported his arrest and release. Lopez-Gomez told the news site that he had told the trooper who arrested him he was a U.S. citizen.
Thomas Kennedy, a spokesman for Florida Immigrant Coalition, told NBC News he was with Lopez-Gomez’s mother at a protest on Thursday afternoon outside the Leon County Jail where her son was being held when she got a call from ICE informing her he was being released. Rather than release him where she was, ICE asked her to meet them at a nearby Wendy’s for the officer’s safety, he said.
“I am happy for family and grateful for them to be united,” Kennedy said. “This man was wronged. There needs to be damages.”
Lopez-Gomez’s mother told Florida Phoenix that she worries her other children, also U.S. citizens, will now live in fear of deportation.
Lopez-Gomez was born in Georgia and therefore is an American citizen. A judge for Leon County, Florida, had determined that a birth certificate presented at a hearing Thursday was authentic but had said she did not have jurisdiction beyond finding no probable cause for the charge.
Lopez-Gomez continued to be detained on a request to hold him from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE’s role is to enforce immigration laws that generally apply to noncitizens. American citizens are protected under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution from unreasonable search and seizure, arrest and detention.
Kennedy blamed the barrage of immigration enforcement laws enacted in Florida since Gov. Ron DeSantis has been in office, including mandating that local law enforcement enter what are known as 287(g) agreements to assist federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws.
Kennedy and others also believe racial profiling was involved.
“Since DeSantis has become governor we have had an anti-immigrant law passed every year … It creates a persecutory environment where the whole state becomes a “show me your papers” modus operandi and you have,” Kennedy said, “laws that contradict the constitutional rights of Americans.”
“The judge made a judgment call to deny the constitutional rights of this U.S. born citizen (and) give ICE jurisdiction over someone they should have no jurisdiction over,” Kennedy said. “That’s a problem.”
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