Buffalo lawyers criticize arrest of migrant waiting for asylum hearing

Attorneys Ryan L. Witmer and Matthew K. Borowski said their law firm’s client, an Ecuadorian man in his late 20s who is seeking asylum in the United States, was arrested Monday at his home on Buffalo’s East Side.

According to Witmer, federal agents told him that the only reason for arresting the man was a recent “change in priorities” regarding people who are allowed to stay in the United States while awaiting the outcome of immigration proceedings.

“This is a man who has a job as a roofer, and other than the immigration charge against him, has never been accused of any criminal activity,” Witmer told The Buffalo News on Friday. “An immigration judge released him on $10,000 bond last April, and he’s been waiting for his asylum case to come to court.

“He’s been in no trouble and has had no encounters with any police agency. Nothing has changed in his status. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents just came to his home and arrested him.”

When Witmer asked ICE officials why the Ecuadorian man was arrested, he received an email from an ICE deportation officer, stating that “priorities have changed” for Enforcement and Removal Operations, and that ICE “can re-evaluate custody determinations at any point” while a defendant is facing deportation proceedings. He showed a copy of the email to The News.

“In more than 10 years practicing immigration law, this is the first time one of my clients have been arrested under these circumstances,” Witmer said. “It’s the first time that agents have gone out and arrested one of my clients who has been complying with the court and just waiting for his asylum hearing. We keep hearing the new administration saying that their crackdown is aimed at dangerous people with criminal records. That is not what happened in this case.”

The News was unable to independently verify the two lawyers’ account of what happened to their client. They declined to identify the client by name, saying he fears retribution. Federal officials declined to discuss the case or provide records on the arrest.

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ICE officials in Buffalo referred a News reporter to a spokeswoman in New York City who declined to comment on the case. ICE officials in Washington also declined to discuss it.

President Trump, who took office Jan. 20, has repeatedly stated that he considers illegal immigration one of the nation’s most serious problems. He called undocumented migrants “animals” and accused his Democratic Party opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, of allowing more than 647,000 “migrant criminals” to illegally enter the country to “rape, pillage, plunder and kill” Americans.

Trump promised that his administration will step up enforcement of immigration laws and send millions of undocumented aliens back to their home countries.

Since Trump took office, federal agents have reported arresting thousands of migrants all over the country, including as many as 1,179 in a single day. ICE has announced crackdowns in Chicago, New York City, Boston and other cities.

Stating that the main goal of the crackdowns is apprehending migrants with records of violent crime, ICE has announced the arrests of a Mexican child rapist in Texas who “illegally entered the U.S. four times,” a Haitian gang leader arrested in Boston with a long list of weapons and violent crime arrests, a Mexican man arrested in Colorado who is accused of burglary, kidnapping and strangulation, and 33 “criminal noncitizens” arrested in New Jersey during a “weeklong surge operation.”

On Thursday, a top Justice Department official criticized local police in Ithaca for their handling of a case involving a Mexican citizen who recently pleaded guilty to assault. The case involved the Buffalo ICE field office, which oversees cases throughout much of New York State.

Ithaca is a “sanctuary community” that has vowed not to help federal immigration agents to lock up migrants.

Jesus Romero-Hernandez, 27, should have instead been turned over to ICE agents because they had a federal warrant for his arrest for illegally entering the United States, a high-ranking Justice Department official charged.

“The Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office in Ithaca, a self-described sanctuary city, appears to have failed to honor a valid federal arrest warrant for a criminal alien with an assault conviction,” said acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove in a statement issued Thursday. “Yesterday, despite the warrant, a defendant with no legal status and a history of violence was released into the community.”

Officials of Ithaca and Tompkins denied any wrongdoing in the case.

The Washington Post reported last week that the Trump administration has established a “quota” for daily arrests of migrants in ICE field offices all over the country.

Senior ICE officials have told the leaders of field offices that they want 75 arrests each day from each office, and that managers would be held responsible if that target was not met, the Post reported.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the newspaper that its report was “false” but declined to explain further, the Post reported.

ICE officials declined to comment on Friday when a News reporter asked if there is any kind of quota for arrests.

“It certainly sounds like there may be a quota, or else ICE is simply going out and arresting as many people as possible every day,” said Borowski, one of the Buffalo immigration attorneys.

But he and several other Buffalo immigration lawyers said they have not seen a big increase in the arrests of migrants locally since Trump took office.

The Ecuadorian man who was arrested is in the Buffalo Detention Center in Batavia, awaiting a hearing on his case.

“His partner is extremely upset, and he is very upset because he cannot be with her to support her, financially or emotionally,” Witmer said. “They are scared to death. They don’t understand why this is happening to them.”