Thread: Teen detained by Border Patrol after traffic violation

Eric Wilkinson, KING 5 News 5:34 p.m. PDT September 18, 2015

Immigration activists filed a formal complaint against the Bellingham Police Department on Friday, saying an officer racially profiled a 15-year-old boy who had been stopped for a traffic infraction.

The boy ended up in the custody of U.S. Border Patrol agents and was detained for 12 hours.

"It was scary," said the boy. "They put you in jail with the uniform. All of them were adults, they had the tattoos."

Alfredo "Lelo" Juarez was pulled over in downtown Bellingham after going the wrong way down a one way street in June. He had taken his parents' car without permission or a license. He admitted to police that he was undocumented, but lied to them about his age, telling them he was 18.

With no ID and a false age, police couldn't determine the boy's true identity. They took him at his word and treated him as an adult.

"If he had told us that he was 15 years old and didn't have a driver's license, our direction would've been 180 degrees different," said BPD Lt. Bob Vander Yacht. "We would've been reaching out to find a parent."

Instead they reached out to the Border Patrol for help with identifcation. Agents took Juarez into custody, transported him to a detention center in Tacoma, questioned him and locked him up overnight with adult inmates.

He was petrified that his family would be deported.

A group of protesters gathered outside the Bellingham Police headquarters said local police overstepped their authority.

"Their job is to give traffic tickets and see that safety of the public is first," said Maru Mora of the group Latino Advocacy. "That is their job, not to do immigration enforcement."

Bellingham Police insist they're not out trying to tracking down illegal immigrants on a daily basis. They say they're looking into whether the officer should've done things differently and hope this will open a dialog with the community.

"This isn't how we wanted this to turn out," said Vander Yacht. "Hopefully we can learn from this and the young man can, as well."

Because there is no criminal history, Juarez's family is not expected to face deportation proceedings.

Juarez and his parents are farm workers. He is a junior at Burlington-Edison High School.

http://www.king5.com/story/news/loca...trol/72427070/

Because there is no criminal history, Juarez's family is not expected to face deportation proceedings.

Juarez and his parents are farm workers. He is a junior at Burlington-Edison High School.

It's just disgusting. Catch and release. They should have called the parents, unified them all as a family, and deported the whole lot of them. That is our law. Why isn't it being enforced?

Bellingham Police insist they're not out trying to tracking down illegal immigrants on a daily basis. They say they're looking into whether the officer should've done things differently and hope this will open a dialog with the community.

Illegals break more than one law to stay here and this police department appears to want to give them a free pass.