|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
FRAMINGHAM — Juan Francisco Méndez, whose violent immigration arrest by federal agents on April 14 went viral worldwide, no longer has to wear an ankle bracelet or check in as part of a supervisory program with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Employees with ICE’s Intensive Supervision Assistance Program (ISAP) removed a GPS tracking ankle bracelet from Méndez after he checked in at their office Thursday. ICE includes ISAP as part of its Alternatives to Detention program. It is run by an independent third-party contractor, BI Incorporated, a Colorado-based subsidiary of private for-profit prison company GEO Group.
“I just found out now when he came home,” said Marilú Domingo Ortiz, Méndez’s wife, who has become an immigrant advocate since her husband’s arrest. “Honestly, I just feel so much more at peace now.”
“His team of attorneys with the ACLU had a habeas petition [in U.S. District Court] they were still pursuing on the issue,” said Ondine Gálvez Sniffin, Méndez’s immigration attorney, via text message. “Rather than go forward and have a judge order them to remove it, they went ahead and did it themselves.
“A small victory but a victory nonetheless.”
Méndez was arrested April 14 in New Bedford, as he sat beside Ortiz in their parked car. Federal agents surrounded the vehicle, smashed the back passenger window, and pulled Méndez out. The video of the arrest, first published by The New Bedford Light, spread fast — fueling outrage and drawing national and international attention within days.
Méndez was released on $1,500 bond on May 15 after more than a month in ICE custody at the Strafford County Department of Corrections in Dover, New Hampshire. He is charged with illegal entry into the U.S., a misdemeanor. He was held without charges until May 9, a day after a judge declared that the government had failed to prosecute him.
Méndez is seeking asylum via a derivative claim through Ortiz, who has already been granted asylum, alongside the couple’s 9-year-old son.
Méndez’s next hearing is scheduled for Sept. 25 at Boston Immigration Court before Immigration Judge Justin McEwen.
Ortiz said that even though there is some relief, Méndez is still dealing with the aftermath of his detention.
“He’s still scared to go out,” she said.
Sniffin said that if U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had not yet adjudicated his asylum status by his next hearing, she will ask to continue the case.
Kevin G. Andrade can be reached at kandrade@newbedfordlight.org
This country needs immigrants not ilegal immigrants, I’m a legal immigrant citizen, and it was always the way to cross the board of any country in the world not just in the USA, go to your country get you legal documents and then come back to our beautiful country