Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, possibly acting upon orders from high-level officials in the Trump administration, have transported Memphis journalist Manuel Duran to its LaSalle Detention Center in Louisiana — jumping over two steps in the typical deportation process apparently to avoid community outrage, scrutiny and actions to seek for him a waiver and release.
As of late this morning, family members have not been given Duran’s “A” number, an alien identification number which is required to be assigned to a person as soon as he comes into ICE custody — which was early afternoon yesterday — according to a facility administration official in Jena, Louisiana.
The usual process for detention in Memphis is that a person is housed in a local facility for a couple of days, then moved to a facility in Mason, Tennessee, before the final step in detention at LaSalle before deportation.
”I don’t think there’s a timeline for how long someone is held there,” an ICE spokesperson in Washington told us.
Duran’s bizarre and seemingly targeted arrest by Memphis police on Tuesday came while reporters from all major TV broadcast and news outlets as well as the New York Times, the BBC, the Guardian and the Daily Kos were in Memphis covering “MLK50,” the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s murder in Memphis April 4, 2018.
MPD officers arrested Duran while he was filming and reporting on a “street theater” action to highlight abuses prisoners experience once they have been seized by ICE. Class C misdemeanor charges were dismissed against him on Thursday in Shelby County General Sessions criminal court, while eight others who took part in the action were arraigned this week and have cases set for April 23 and May 4. However, unlike the eight others, Duran was never released from the Shelby County jail — although his family had posted $100 bond at about 9 Tuesday night. ICE agents picked him up from the Shelby County jail after his case was dropped by prosecutors.
Two plainclothes ICE agents were in the courtroom Thursday morning waiting for Duran’s local case to be heard. Agents did not pick him up immediately, as was reported in other media, but rather he was seized later behind closed doors at the Shelby County Justice Center jail. Jail release clerks required ICE agents to wait until they had processed a release confirmation from Judge Bill Anderson’s court staff. Once that hit the court’s computer system, it was a matter of minutes before ICE took custody of him — which would have been around 1 p.m. on Thursday.
FROM EARLIER STORY:
Duran, who operates the Spanish-language online newspaper Memphis Noticias, was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement around 1 p.m. Thursday April 5 from the Shelby County Justice Center.
Charges of disorderly conduct and obstructing a passageway were dismissed in General Sessions Division 7 before judge Bill Anderson this morning – nolle prosequi, or not prosecuted – without costs. However, ICE had placed a hold with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department.
Duran’s friends, family and supporters had telephoned and had petitioned Shelby County Sheriff Bill Oldham to not honor any “ICE holds,” or “detainer warrants,” which call for law enforcement agencies to hold someone for 48 hours.
Duran was arrested by Memphis police Tuesday afternoon while he was working as a journalist and recording an action at 201 Poplar Avenue outside the Shelby County Justice Center. Duran was charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing a highway or passageway, which are charges typically put on First Amendment demonstrators who are not breaking any actual laws.
Although Duran’s family had posted bond, he was held in custody – the only one of nine defendants not to be released after Tuesday’s street theater. Female actors were chained together and led by an ICE agent actor to call attention to forced labor put upon persons who are imprisoned as allegedly being undocumented immigrants.
DOING HIS JOB
Duran was not acting in a disorderly manner or disrupting traffic or anyone, as we personally witnessed, while he filmed actors after they had crossed Poplar Avenue at a crosswalk, then were heading east on the sidewalk.
Defense attorney Ann Schiller gathered video evidence and presented it to the Shelby County District Attorney’s office Thursday morning. The prosecutor agreed that there was not sufficient evidence to prosecute the charge, Schiller said, and the case was dropped.
”He was the only reporter arrested, and the only one arrested who was not in the demonstration,” Duran’s wife, Melisa Valdez, pointed out.
CASE DISMISSED
Attorney General Amy Weirich, in a rare move, put out a statement about the suddenly high-profile case:
“This office has dismissed misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and obstruction of a highway or passageway filed Tuesday against Manuel Duran. There was not sufficient evidence to go forward with prosecution. This ends any legal issues Mr. Duran has with this office."
Duran was brought from the jail to court on Wednesday morning, but the only “offer” officially on the table from the prosecutor’s office at that time was a guilty plea. Since there was already a 48-hour detainer warrant in place, Schiller asked to put off Duran’s arraignment until Thursday, reasoning that the additional day to work out a better deal would still come within the 48-hour window.
“He was not even part of the protest,” Schiller said. “He was not rude to officers. He was not fighting them.
“All of a sudden, for some reason, they take him into custody.”
One point of confusion — or something — was that although Duran’s $100 cash bond had been paid by family members at about 8:58 Tuesday night, according to his wife, he was not released. Supposedly, Duran did not sign certain paperwork which affirmed that he accepted being bonded out — either because he did not want to commit to something unsure of the implications and meaning of the document, or because it was not presented to him timely, or because he did not have the opportunity to speak to his wife or to counsel.
“I talked to him later that night (Tuesday), and he did not get the document, but he got something about immigration,” said Melisa Valdez.
“The bond had been paid, but they (Sheriff’s department) said he had not accepted the bond,” Valdez said. “It happened fast and weird. Nobody’s talking about how the hold was put on, or how on purpose they gave false information to the media, saying he was only being held because his bond was not paid.
“They were trying to keep Manual isolated,” she said. “They always had an excuse for me not to see him.
“One of the biggest things we noticed was how the jail system is not friendly to non-English-speaking people. People present you with documents you do not understand.”
FORCED PRISON LABOR
Activists, including the Memphis Coalition of Concerned Citizens, had helped to organize the action to bring attention to private prisons’ profit motives in housing ICE detainees, even allegedly hiring them out for pennies on the day to corporations such as Victoria’s Secret, Sprint and Wal-Mart.
“This was a peaceful demonstration,” Schiller said. “What would have happened if the police had let them finish walking down the sidewalk? I can’t give you a reason why he got taken.”
Schiller and Division 7 Judge Anderson said there appeared to be two plainclothes ICE agents inside the courtroom when Duran’s case was adjudicated.
ICE OR NOT?
“We are not holding him on an ICE hold,” Shelby County Sheriff’s Department public information officer Earle Farrell said Thursday morning before Duran’s case was dismissed. “We are holding him on charges by MPD. We don’t hold people on ICE detainers.”
Farrell said Duran had failed to sign a document accepting the bond release.
“Bond was met. Only two things can happen when you make bond,” Farrell said. “You either get out of jail, or you refuse to sign the bond, and you stay in jail. All I can tell you is, he’s still in jail.”
After Duran’s case had been dismissed, Farrell said, “I understand there was an ICE hold.” Farrell had failed to mention that when we first spoke. Nonetheless, ICE agents snatched him fairly soon after his case was disposed of, presumably before he would have been processed out of custody and into the hands of his family under normal conditions.
After 48 hours, if ICE has not picked up a prisoner from a detainer warrant and if the jail has not turned the prisoner loose, the attorney must file a writ to demand release of the prisoner as is constitutionally required.
“There does not appear they (law enforcement agencies) are required to hold persons on a detainer warrant,” said Latino Memphis staff attorney Christy Swatzell. “There is nothing that requires them (Shelby County sheriff) to cooperate with ICE.”
Swatzell said she and other local attorneys are digging into the particulars of the ICE detainer warrants and applicable statutes to determine the level of cooperation compelled, if any, upon local law enforcement agencies.
“There is no set protocol,” Swatzell said, for what happens to persons who are picked up by ICE, but the usual route is that they are held in a Memphis facility for a couple of days, then transported to a detention facility in Mason, Tennessee, for a few days, then taken to Jena, Louisiana, before being sent to their country of origin.
Swatzell said there is legislation coming up in Congress to empower local law enforcement agencies to act as extensions of ICE. Locally, however, Swatzell says the district attorney and law enforcement want to be detached from the immigration process, which is federal, as “they already have enough problems.”
ORDER FROM ‘THE TOP?’
The ICE agents apparently told a court official that the order for ICE to pick up Duran came from “the top,” meaning Washington, DC.
We talked to ICE media relations in Washington, DC, this afternoon, but did not get a call back from anyone with solid information. Duran further was not found in the ICE locator system online as of late Thursday afternoon. We have reached out to Tennessee Senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander for comment and action on their part but have not heard back.
We also spoke with staff at LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana, but they asked us to call back tomorrow.
There is speculation that rather than hold Duran locally and then in Mason for a few days as is typical, they will send him directly to Jena, LA, to tamp down on media coverage and outrage in the Memphis community.
‘WHERE FROM HERE?’
Duran reportedly had an order of removal from 2007, but immigration attorneys say he was never notified of any court appearance. The Southern Poverty Law Center and Latino Memphis have joined to file a motion in Atlanta immigration court to re-open his case.
With the MLK50 anniversary events now behind us, and with MPD giving the city a black eye while in the national spotlight by appearing to target activists and this journalist, the story of Duran’s arrest and deportation could ignite a local and national powder keg. For a year, the city of Memphis spent millions of dollars promoting Memphis as a civil rights tourism destination, while many local residents and journalists pointed out that the city had not substantially improved in many areas since King’s murder 50 years ago – such as education, wages, income disparities between whites and blacks and police surveillance of citizens.
“The eyes of the world will be on Memphis,” Mayor Jim Strickland and tourism head Kevin Kane repeated endlessly leading up to MLK50. That statement was true as national TV networks, the New York Times, BBC, the Guardian, DailyKos and other national and international outlets were in Memphis.
STREET THEATER
Meanwhile, MPD roughly manhandled female demonstrators, twisting their arms, grabbing their breasts, choking them, pulling their hair and dragging them across asphalt, while arresting three “inmate actors” and six other persons on Tuesday.
Among those arrested was Keedran Franklin of Memphis Coalition of Concerned Citizens, who was charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction of a highway or passageway. Franklin was serving as a marshal, or peacekeeper, at the action when he was grabbed and handcuffed by police.
Attorney Schiller’s observation was that after Franklin was arrested, “All hell broke loose. “
Police next grabbed Duran, then Elizabeth Vega of St. Louis and Memphis residents Yuli Escobar and Zyanya Cruz, who were playing roles of ICE detainees. They also arrested Memphis residents Spencer Kaaz, who is active in establishing community gardens, and Bill Stegall, an educator who was playing the role of an ICE agent leading a “chain” of prisoners.
Schiller said she brought video evidence to the district attorney’s office, and she reviewed two sequences of body-worn camera footage. The BWC footage was not particularly informative, she said, but in the video taken by Duran before he was arrested, an audible “get back” is heard, then “we are,” and then Duran’s camera moves backwards before the image goes haywire as he is grabbed.
MASSIVE POLICE SHOWDOWN
Police turned out massively, with more than 40 officers and command staff and dozens of vehicles, including the MPD surveillance van and officers who conspicuously filmed the crowd of spectators on the sidewalk. More than a half hour after those arrested had been removed and things had completely died down, police then re-emerged en masse and arrested Fight for $15 organizer Ashley Cathey and her sister who had lingered and were talking with friends on the sidewalk.
Police then squared off against citizens alongside a parking lot on the north side of Poplar and appeared to trap persons who remained on the scene with an implied threat of arrest if they attempted to leave.
The law enforcement technique of “kettling” is when police back citizens into a corner or dead end with no way out, such as police did with Trump opponents on Inauguration Day 2017.
Duran’s partner Melisa Valdez, her father and friends and supporters gathered outside the jail release point at 201 Poplar upon learning after 12:30 that his release was being processed. Their elation at the possibility of freeing the 42-year-old journalist and returning him home was short-lived, however, when a jail employee who came outside the building for her lunch break informed them:
“He’s gone. Immigration got him.”
Elizabeth Vega’s story: ‘I came to Memphis, and all I got was this big bruise.’ — and arrested
Filmmaker Gary Moore operates the educational non-profit Citizens Media Resource and Moore Media Strategies consultancy.