Thread: 'A whole nightmare': Alabama father of 7 out on bond after detention by ICE

Posted on June 17, 2017 at 8:17 AM



BY CONNOR SHEETS

On April 10, Antonio Sanchez was driving from a landscaping job in Pelham to his home in Pinson when he was pulled over for having a large pile of branches in the back of his truck.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office deputy who stopped him did not give the father of seven a ticket for the branches. But the deputy ran a check on him and discovered that his license was suspended and he had missed a court date for a public intoxication violation.

The deputy who stopped Sanchez for having branches in his truck bed ultimately arrested and booked him into the county jail for the other infractions.

Within days, Sanchez - who has lived in the U.S. for more than 25 of his 40 years - was in a federal detention facility in Louisiana awaiting deportation, a target of America's increasingly aggressive approach to immigration enforcement.

He got out on bond in late May, but his immigration case is still pending.

Sanchez and his wife, Leticia, spoke with AL.com Tuesday night at the Adelante Alabama Worker Center in Hoover, where they described the impact the incident has had on their family and their lives.

"It was very tough to be locked up. It feels worse than prison," Sanchez said through a Spanish-language translator as he bounced his seven-month-old daughter, Yazmin, on his knee. "It was really, really sad thinking about my kids the whole time."

'A whole nightmare'

Sanchez's immigration case is one of thousands currently pending in courts across the nation as President Donald Trump's administration has taken a hard line on immigration.

"Just from a traffic stop a whole nightmare can start. Some of us may have some things in our past but it can be from years ago and everyone deserves a second chance," Cesar Mata, an organizer and member of Adelante, a nonprofit immigration advocacy organization, said.

In the first 100 days of the Trump administration, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), arrested more than 41,000 people accused of being in the U.S. illegally, a 37.6 percent increase over the same period last year, the agency reported.

"ICE agents and officers have been given clear direction to focus on threats to public safety and national security, which has resulted in a substantial increase in the arrest of convicted criminal aliens," ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan said in an online statement. "However, when we encounter others who are in the country unlawfully, we will execute our sworn duty and enforce the law."

Thomas Byrd, a spokesman for ICE's field office in New Orleans, which oversees immigration enforcement for multiple states in the Southeast including Alabama, provided AL.com with a statement via email Friday.

"We do not keep arrest statistics for states. It is only for our field office which covers five states. Generally, for most statistical requests a Freedom of Information Act request is required," he explained. "As to the specifics of this case, I doubt I can have an answer by your deadline. I'll try."

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

For the Sanchez family, ICE's crackdown in recent months is no longer an abstraction.

Several immigrants who attended the Adelante meeting Tuesday reported that they or their friends had witnessed or been swept up in a range of ICE actions across Jefferson County in recent weeks. And many immigrants across the state have said for months that they live in fear that their families will be the next to be impacted by the crackdown.

"I feel like the law has changed a lot [under Trump.] I feel like just for being Hispanic you're at risk of having what happened to me happen to you," Sanchez said.

"There were people in the detention center in Louisiana who were there just for not having a seat belt on or not having a license; that was their only offense. Other people I met in detention were just at the wrong place at the wrong time and they were there when ICE came looking for someone else."

'ICE hold'

Leticia Sanchez had the money together and was ready to pay her husband's bond the morning after he was arrested. But Adelante representatives say that ICE had already issued a detainer known as an "ICE hold," meaning that the federal agency had requested that the sheriff's office keep him in the county jail for extra time to give ICE agents an opportunity to pick him up.

"ICE issues detainers when there is probable cause to believe someone in local custody is in this country illegally," Byrd said. "It is very common for us to issue detainers."

ICE soon took custody of Sanchez and transported him to Dekalb County Detention Center in Fort Payne. Days later, he was taken to ICE's LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana, where Sanchez, who is not a U.S. citizen but declined to discuss his immigration status or nationality, sat in a cell, waiting to be deported.

He remained in that facility for several weeks, during which time his son, Daniel - who is now 18 but was 17 when Sanchez was arrested in April - had to step up and serve as the family's breadwinner.

"It was very hard when he was locked up because we have all these kids and our oldest son had to leave school to work and support us," Leticia Sanchez said through the translator.

Adelante took on Sanchez's case, distributing a public petition calling on ICE to let him go, and representing him in his motion for bond for release from custody while he awaits the resolution of his case. He was granted bond and released in late May.

"When I found out I was going to be given a bond hearing, I was very happy and trusting in God that I would be able to get out," Sanchez said.

Though he still faces a significant possibility of being deported if he doesn't win his case, his chances of going free are much better than if he had not received bond, according to Jessica Vosburgh, Adelante's executive director.

"Getting bond is absolutely the difference between getting deported and getting relief," Vosburgh said.

"Once you get out of detention, your case moves so much slower and that gives you time to prepare your case, find a lawyer, save up money to pay a lawyer, find witnesses. Everything you need to do to win your case is almost impossible from inside detention."

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/201...bama_fath.html

What about the NIGHTMARE to US taxpayers paying for his SEVEN anchor babies??? Who paid the hospital bills.

Deport the whole family.

Why do they think pictures of their large families of illegal aliens and anchor babies gains them positive attention? What in that picture tells Americans "you should want more of this"? Most Americans want to deport illegal aliens and change the policy of anchor baby citizenship. Do they not know that? Someone should tell them. They need to go, they need to leave, they need to depart our nation.

The media often writes sob sympathy articles like this. Actions have consequences and we do have laws in this country, just some haven't been enforced. Kind of curious that he has been here over 25 years and used a translator.

"It was very tough to be locked up. It feels worse than prison," Sanchez said through a Spanish-language translator

He's been here for "More than 25 of his 40 years" and STILL can't speak English? Seriously? I would LOVE to know just how much financial support they have received over the years! He's working but I'd give you 10/1 odds they tell Social Services he doesn't... cause that would be admitting ANOTHER law broken! That besides driving on a revoked license and not showing up for court.

We DO NOT need people like this here, they're UNDESIRABLE.

Yes, they sure are undesirable.

These illegals are ignorant and adamant about breaking our laws. They think driving without a license and drunk driving etc are no big deal and not deportable offenses. Just the fact they are here illegally is a deportable offense. Show him the door please......