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Texas undocumented immigrant youth Felipe Abonza-Lopez was released on Friday after more than a month in federal immigration detention, but not before he was unjustly stripped of his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protections by the Trump administration. “It's common for the federal government to pull a person's DACA status if they've been convicted of a crime,” notes the San Antonio Current, “but it seems there have been no charges filed against Abonza-Lopez”:
The San Marcos man was originally picked up by law enforcement on October 12, when a Uvalde County deputy pulled over a car that he was a passenger in. The car, driven by Abonza-Lopez's cousin, "looked suspicious," according to the deputy. Abonza-Lopez and the four other people in the car were arrested on the suspicion of being involved in a "human smuggling operation." All five of them were undocumented immigrants.
According to the Uvalde County Sheriff's Office, Abonza-Lopez was never charged with a crime.
Abonza-Lopez told advocates that during his time in detention, South Texas Detention Complex employees mocked him for his prosthetic leg. "I am suffering,” he wrote in a letter. “Please get me out of here. I don't deserve to be treated so inhumanely.” RAICES, which led the community effort to release Abonza-Lopez, further noted his DACA was revoked at the start of the investigation, not the conclusion. In the end, Abonza-Lopez was never charged and still lost his DACA anyway.
“We are so happy that Felipe is finally free, but he should have never been detained in the first place,” said RAICES’s Amy Fischer. “[Customs and Border Protection] and [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] are acting as rogue agencies, and it was the power of community outrage that made them buckle under pressure and allow for his release. We must now work towards releasing his cousin Javier, passing the Dream Act, and fighting to put an end to this harmful detention and deportation machine.”
As immigrant rights advocates have noted, the recent cases of Abonza-Lopez and Rosamaria Hernandez, a 10-year-old special needs child who was detained by CBP following emergency gallbladder surgery, highlight the urgent need to pass a clean DREAM Act by December.
Without legislation, undocumented immigrant youth like Abonza-Lopez and Hernandez could be torn from the only countries they’ve ever known as home:
[Abonza-Lopez’s] lived in the United States since he was 5-years-old, graduated from an Austin-area high school in 2016, and has a clean criminal history. Lawmakers and advocates are demanding answers.
"There's no basis for his claim getting revoked," Texas Congressman Lloyd Doggett told the Current Friday, referring to DACA recipients by their nickname, "Dreamers."
"Clearly, we can't defend a Dreamer who's charged with illegal conduct. But there's no evidence that they were doing anything wrong," he went on.
Doggett, who successfully intervened in the February detention of San Antonio DACA recipient Josue Romero, said that he's vigilant in searching for answers in Abonza-Lopez' case—as vigilant as he is in returning protections to DACA recipients in Congress.
"We need to push forward with DACA so this kind of thing doesn't keep happening," he said. "Dreamers cannot be used as bargaining chips."
Abonza-Lopez told Telemundo that “there were moments when I cried and thought that I would never leave that place. There were times when I thought they would return me to my home country.” According to Telemundo, family and advocates helped raise the $7,500 for his release by selling tamales. Abonza-Lopez is back home, but he could now be at risk of deportation due to losing his DACA protections. And, without a work permit, his job at Amazon could be at risk.
“We will continue to take the streets and fight against SB4 and demand that a clean Dream Act is passed immediately,” said Julieta Garibay, cofounder and Texas director of United We Dream. “Our community cannot and will not wait. Immigrant youth across our beautiful state will not back down. We are here to stay, and we are here to fight for justice!”