A U.S.-born citizen was arrested in Florida on Wednesday and charged with illegally entering the state as an “unauthorized alien.” Twenty-year-old Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez was detained for a day at the request of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, despite his mother producing his birth certificate and Social Security card at a court hearing.
Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggans inspected the birth certificate during a court hearing on Thursday, confirmed it was “an authentic document,” and said she found no probable cause for the charge, the Florida Phoenix reported. But a state prosecutor said that because ICE had asked the local jail to hold Lopez-Gomez, the court did not have the authority to grant his release.
“This court does not have any jurisdiction other than what I’ve already done,” said Riggans.
“I wanted to tell them, ‘Where are you going to take him? He is from here,’” Lopez-Gomez’s mother Sebastiana Gomez-Perez told the outlet after the hearing. “I felt immense helplessness because I couldn’t do anything, and I am desperate to get my son out of there.”
“It hurts so much,” she said through tears.
Lopez-Gomez was reportedly released Thursday evening after protestors gathered outside of the Leon County jail, where he was being held.
Lopez-Gomez was charged under a recently passed state law that made it a state crime to illegally enter the state. The Florida Immigrant Coalition sued state officials earlier this month, alleging that the law violates the authority of the federal government to oversee immigration law. A federal judge temporarily blocked the law on April 4. State prosecutor Kimberly Thompson did not respond to a request for comment regarding the reason for Lopez-Gomez’s arrest.
The Homeland Security Investigations Office in Tampa issued a 48-hour ICE detainer for Lopez-Gomez on Thursday. ICE did not respond to an email asking why a U.S. citizen was subject to a detainer.
“This is what persecutory and poorly written state laws in Florida lead to,” Thomas Kennedy, a policy analyst at the Florida Immigrant Coalition posted on social media on Thursday.
Lopez-Gomez was born in Georgia, but lived in Mexico for most of his life, until returning to Georgia four years ago, his mother told the Phoenix. He was previously arrested on Sunday in Georgia and charged with driving under the influence, but was released after his family presented his birth certificate and Social Security card, his mother said.
On Wednesday, Lopez-Gomez was a passenger in a car pulled over by a state trooper who accused the driver of going 78 miles per hour in a 65 mile per hour zone. The trooper claimed in the arrest report that Lopez-Gomez said he was in the country illegally.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump told reporters he’s “all for” sending U.S. citizens to an infamous prison in El Salvador. Last month, the Trump administration sent hundreds of immigrants from the U.S. to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), in violation of a court order.
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The administration has since defied a court order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who had legal protections against being deported to El Salvador but was deported based on what the administration described as an administrative error.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated Juan Carlos’ last name.
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ImmigrationFloridaU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
