Desert View students protest Border Patrol detainment of classmate weeks away from graduating

“He’s working his behind off to be graduating,” Ibarra said of his classmate Thomas Torres, who is only two weeks away from graduating from Desert View with his high school diploma.

It is uncertain whether Torres, 18, will graduate with his friend, though. The teen was detained by Border Patrol on Thursday, May 2, after being pulled over by a Pima County Sheriff’s Department officer in a traffic stop.

Torres may have a court date for May 22 — the same day he is supposed to graduate, according to Sunnyside Unified spokesman Victor Mercado.

“He has my back and I have his,” Ibarra continued. “He needs to be back. … This shouldn’t be happening.”

At least 120 of Torres’ Desert View classmates protested his detainment in front of the Sheriff’s Department headquarters off Benson Highway and Kino Parkway, Monday morning. Torres is currently in a Border Patrol detention center in Casa Grande, Ibarra said.

“Free Thomas! Free Thomas! Free Thomas!” his friends and peers chanted over a speaker blasting rap music. They held long banners emblazoned with the phrases “Con Justicia Hay Paz” — with justice there is peace — “#FreeThomas” and “OPERATION THOMAS.”

“Viva Mexico!” individual students yelled at multiple points throughout the demonstration.

The students marched Monday morning holding handmade signs and Mexican flags to the Sheriff’s Department from Desert View — a more than 4-mile walk, according to Google Maps — to protest their friend’s detainment and demand he be released from Border Patrol’s custody without a bond, immediately.

“Because we as students can’t afford to pay it,” Desert View senior Jamilet Fragoso, one of Torres’ friends who organized the march to the Sheriff’s Department, said through a megaphone.

Two of Torres’ friends, Ervyn Rivas and Louis Escalante, were in the car when he was pulled over in front of the Dollar General on Drexel Road and Alvernon Way.

The officer didn’t tell the boys why he pulled them over, they told the Star.

The officer asked Torres if he had been drinking or using drugs — there were a few Mike’s Hard Lemonades visible in the car, which the boys said belonged to Torres’ mom — and asked him to get out of the car to take a sobriety test, he said.

After asking Torres to take the sobriety test, the officer asked for his social security number, they continued. The officer called Border Patrol shortly after that, Rivas said.

“They (the police and border patrol) didn’t do anything with us,” said Rivas, who waited with Torres for over an hour before Border Patrol detained him. “We were just worried about him.”

It is uncertain if Torres had a driver’s license with him when he was pulled over. The Sheriff’s Department did not respond to calls and emails asking for confirmation of the boys’ account of the incident. Border Patrol confirmed that Torres remained in custody on Monday but provided no further details.

At the protest, a handful of Torres’ best friends spoke to his character as his peers stood behind them in solidarity.

Torres, who plays football at Desert View, is a down-to-earth, kind person that everybody gets along with, they said. He works hard to do well in school. After graduating, he wants to study to be an electrical engineer, Ibarra said.

“This shouldn’t be happening to him,” Ibarra said for the second time.

This shouldn’t be happening to any undocumented person, said one of Torres’ good friends, Daffne Anselmo.

“We feel that threat that any of us can be taken at any moment,” Anselmo said.

That’s the other reason the students protested outside of the Sheriff’s Department, Monday morning. Not just for their friend, but for Tucson’s immigrant and Latino communities.

“We shouldn’t be worried about ending up in jail or prison after school,” Anselmo said to the crowd through a megaphone. “We look different, but we’re all made the same.”

Though the students don’t have any other protest plans at the moment, they will continue to fight for the release of their friend.

“As far as it takes us,” Ibarra said.