How an ICE memo cast a shadow over a California family’s hopes to reunite with their detained patriarch

Maria Murillo and her family were full of hope at the beginning of this week at their Pomona home After all there was a chance if a Texas immigration judge ruled their way that her family was about to be reunited After a month apart Murillo s husband and the father of their children was on the cusp of certainly coming home Until he wasn t RELATED Nearly undocumented immigrants have been detained in Los Angeles area since early June DHS says Jose Luis Zavala a gardener was one of thousands of immigrants swept up last month in President Donald Trump s massive nationwide immigration crackdown Now detained in a Texas detention center his journey halfway across the country is a reflection of numerous with a now elusive path to freedom Related Articles Mathews California should hold masked federal agents accountable under this s court ruling Marines mobilized to Los Angeles are being sent home Pentagon says Mother of migrant killed during California Dividing line Patrol chase files wrongful death suit Who s in ICE detention in California According to ICE less than are criminals Democrat-led states have rolled back Medicaid access for people lacking permanent legal status It s a path that runs through an increasingly complex federal immigration system already unclear to countless Americans where attorneys families and detainees face a pipeline of evolving interpretation of rules and expanded federal authority claimed by a new presidential administration As Zavala s attorney noted Be prepared for surprises Those surprises as Zavala and his family learned this week could impact how long detainees could be in custody whether they will remain in this country or rejoin families in the U S For weeks Zavala and his family have located themselves among the targets of the regime s mammoth legal battle to deport millions of immigrants in the country illegally an effort fueled by relentless reminders by the president and his officers to use federal law enforcement to purge the worst of the worst felons from the nation For the Trump administration Zavala s -year-old DUI charge which had been cleared from his record and his undocumented status count him as among the worst despite the charge having been cleared and a record of raising a family with a job in the U S for years Like numerous latest weeks have been full of uncertainty as days turn into weeks in federal custody and as expanding interpretations of long-standing federal rules cast a shadow over a detainee s fate As his family waited Zavala was in the crosshairs of the Trump administration s massive expansion of a federal drive that put he and millions in jeopardy of being detained indefinitely Maria Murillo wife of ICE detainee Jose Luis Zavala places her hand on the couch where she would sit with her husband Jose after he would get home from a long day working and return home to be with his family in Pomona on Thursday July Photo by Terry Pierson The Press-Enterprise SCNG Against all that nearly one month after he was apprehended Zavala took a big step toward walking out of an El Paso detention center with his eldest son and daughter to fly home to Pomona But in a span of hours ecstasy turned to sorrow after the leadership applied the brakes his family and attorneys noted It s a glimpse at the kind of turbulence Southern California immigrant families face against a backdrop of a mammoth removal strategy designed to deport millions Rewind to June From LA s B- to El Paso On June Zavala was on his lunch break on a La Mirada gardening job when federal immigration agents converged I m expletive he texted his wife but in Spanish Within moments he was ushered into the rear seat of an SUV and taken to the basement of the Edward R Roybal Building the downtown Los Angeles ICE detention center where in a facility called B- - scores of detainees fathers such as Zavala mothers aunts and uncles have been taken and processed since raids began all over the region in early June It s the first stop in processing detainees during which officers verify their identities before transporting them to detention centers It s also where their families and lawyers have come in search of their loved ones On June Murillo and her daughter were among them They d come to see Zavala and give him vital medication for his diabetes Murillo was lucky to get in after repeated tries for a fleeting moment with the patriarch of the family of Murillo and their four children They left in tears amid the early uncertainty of the raids blanketing Southern California What did he do wrong they wondered Would he just be deported on the spot Would he get any kind of physiological care For ICE and the Homeland Safety what Zavala did was crystal clear Jose Luis Savala Ramirez was encountered by CBP in and agreed to return to Mexico rather than face a final order of removal or other penalties stated Assistant Secretary for General Affairs at DHS Tricia McLaughlin announced at the time He then illegally entered the country again and in he was encountered by CBP with falsified immigration documents Ramirez has a Felony DUI conviction from but California dangerously created a effort in to dismiss these to prevent conviction as criteria for removal While immigration advocates caution that undocumented immigrants are more deportable if they have a conviction immigrants have indeed benefited from state laws that dismiss convictions under certain circumstances In California Penal Code took effect erasing the adverse impacts that very old convictions can have on people People could vacate an old conviction or sentence if newly discovered evidence proved their innocence if it was brought over racial or ethnic prejudice or bias or if there was prejudicial error damaging an accused person s ability to meaningfully understand defend against or knowingly accept the actual or probable adverse immigration consequences of a conviction or sentence Echoing the Department of Homeland Assurance stance agency attorneys have argued that convictions vacated under the state s law remain convictions for immigration purposes About a week after the arrest Murillo would learn that her husband was being transferred out of L A to the detention center in El Paso Texas The uncertainty heightened now so numerous miles away Expansion of federal rule casts shadow More uncertainty would come That s when Todd M Lyons acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement wrote employees on July that the agency was revisiting its extraordinarily broad and equally complex authority to detain people It was effective straightaway meaning people would be ineligible for a bond hearing before an immigration judge Instead now they cannot be distributed unless the Homeland Safeguard Department makes an exception RELATED Who s in ICE detention in California According to ICE less than are criminals The directive first stated by The Washington Post signaled a wider use of a law to detain people who had previously been allowed to remain free while their cases wind through immigration court He stated officers that immigrants should be detained for the duration of their removal proceedings The action was a huge hit to those fighting deportation because according to immigration lawyers those proceedings could take months or years and could effect millions Maria Murillo wife of ICE detainee Jose Luis Zavala has their wedding photo at an alter in the living room of the family home with a candle burning in Pomona on Thursday July Photo by Terry Pierson The Press-Enterprise SCNG Zavala was among those millions His attorney Arturo Burga knowing his client Zavala was requesting a bond hearing at the El Paso federal hub after weeks in detention was getting worried Yeah I definitely was concerned I went from very confident to oh no I hope they don t mention that The July hearing in front a Department of Justice administrative law judge would be a pivotal moment At stake was whether Zavala could walk out on bond If he loses he stays in and the leadership would gain a preeminence in efforts to deport him If he wins the outlook is bright as release could help him fight in his deportation proceedings a defense against deportation his attorney announced For Burga the ICE memo was a jolt despite confidence his client had a strong scenario I m like what is going on This is going to be so hard to overcome Traditionally at least in California clients who were not a threat were issued on bond and could continue their deportation proceedings with their attorneys and families all outside of the confines of a federal detention center But the governing body nationalizing an approach stated to become a growing practice among specific immigration judges in the nation to jail people for prolonged prolonged periods appeared intent on doubling down even on folks who a multitude of declared are not the hardened criminals the worst of the worst that agents pledged to deport Inquired by the Associated Press last week to comment on the memo McLaughlin announced The Biden administration dangerously unleashed millions of unvetted illegal aliens into the country and they used multiple loopholes to do so President Donald Trump and Secretary Kristi Noem are now enforcing this law as it was literally written to keep America safe The initiative would apply to anyone who crossed the dividing line illegally and to people who have lived in the country for years even decades But even in the shadow of the Lyons memo Murillo back in Pomona held on to a semblance of faith Good news bad news hours Lyons wrote in his memo that detention was entirely within ICE s discretion but he acknowledged a legal challenge was likely For that reason he described ICE attorneys to continue gathering evidence to argue for detention before an immigration judge including likely danger to the region and flight hazard It would come back to Zavala s incident On Tuesday Murillo and her family were preparing for a reunion Yes they would reunite with a visibly thinner Jose Luis Zavala aged by weeks inside two federal detention centers thousands of miles away from each other Nevertheless she and her family could taste the moment when Zavala would hug is -year-old again They were counting the moments until he could see the signs they d made for his return Bienvenido para de nuevo a casa Welcome back home Only one thing needed to happen The Texas judge had to sign off on releasing him on the bond Only then could he get on a plane and go home Murillo stayed back home but two of their eldest children flew to El Paso Their mission their hope Bring their father back But this wouldn t be easy They d have to endure a redetermination hearing where authorities attorneys would bear down bringing the legal might of a powerful push to deport millions of immigrants fueled by a president s pledge to deport the worst of the worst and the countless depictions of rapists the gang members the murderers Zavala felt the full brunt of that might as Department of Homeless Shield attorneys focused on his past But it was a past that been cleared The DUI charge that the leadership keyed in on had long been dismissed Burga announced According to Burga the governing body did not mention the the memo in its arguments luckily he declared Burga noted the conviction has been dismissed Maria Murillo wife of ICE detainee Jose Luis Zavala has the paperwork for her husbands published on bond signed by a judge but the federal regime appealed the bond and now he waits in an El Paso TX detention center as of Thursday July Photo by Terry Pierson The Press-Enterprise SCNG The bond hearing happened at a m Tuesday By a m the judge had ruled in Zavala s favor He would be disclosed on bond For an anxious family it was a first moment of pure bliss since before June the day when Zavala was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while he was on a job in La Mirada Honestly we just started celebrating and crying and hugging each other Murillo disclosed of the moment the family got word Our first reaction was thank God for this Bad news Wednesday The next day the reverberations of the governing body s expansive initiative appeared to be playing out deflating Murillo s hopes for her husband s release As Murillo s daughter worked to finalize the release on the ground in El Paso she hit a glitch She had to go online to pay the bond a practice Zavala s lawyer mentioned the regime is making everybody do now The request bounced back denied According to family and the lawyer the regime had reserved the situation for appeal In the same way we we so happy the day before we were back to why are they doing this to us Murillo mentioned We went back to square one basically What s the point of having a bond if you can t get circulated Because of the cabinet s intent to appeal Zavala would stay in custody at least for more days If they don t appeal in that window he ll be disclosed in mid August If the executive does appeal the affair will be decided by the Board of Immigration Appeals an administrative body within the Department of Justice that interprets and applies immigration laws That process could take weeks months even a year Burga stated Worst of the Worst Zavala s occurrence is another that has shined a harsh light on the administration s worst of the worst pledge Murillo has reliably acknowledged that back in the early s her husband initially crossed illegally She also acknowledged he once had a DUI on his record back in But while he was once detained on a charge of DUI that charge and incident was dismissed by a court Gordo explained adding that he has no criminal record But worst of the worst Not everyone of the people detained are criminals Burga revealed Mr Zavala his record was clean It s just the simple fact that he appeared undocumented was the simple reason he got detained I think they are just trying to find different methods of finding their goal of mass deportation he noted But McLaughlin the DHS spokesperson has called the assessment that ICE isn t targeting immigrants with a criminal record false and stated that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has directed ICE to target the worst of the worst including gang members murderers and rapists Maria Murillo wife of ICE detainee Jose Luis Zavala stands in her front door way wondering when and if her husband will be published to come home on bond to Pomona on Thursday July Photo by Terry Pierson The Press-Enterprise SCNG She counted detainees with convictions as well as those with pending charges as criminal illegal aliens The latest ICE statistics show that as of June there were people detained by ICE of whom had no criminal convictions That includes people with pending criminal charges and who are subject to immigration enforcement but have no known criminal convictions or pending criminal charges Each detainee is assigned a threat level by ICE on a scale of to with one being the highest Those without a criminal record are classified as having no ICE threat level As of June the latest details available of people detained at facilities nationwide were not given a threat level Another had been graded as a level threat were level and were level The establishment appears to be doing everything in its power to try to jail people under the authority of the immigration laws disclosed Ahilan Arulanantham professor of practice and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Program at UCLA School of Law But the rhetoric is not matching reality he declared Citizens get DUIs and they then receive whatever punishment the criminal legal system deems appropriate Arulanantham commented Nobody is more dangerous because of where they were born So the basic concept that we need to engage in immigration enforcement to make us safer is kind of at war with the way we know the criminal justice systems works at the bulk basic level Arulanantham declared the majority of people being arrested in this wave of enforcement operations are people who do not have a conviction or who have minor convictions Given that the Trump administration is saying over and over again that we re going against the worst of the worst touting alleged arrests of people with criminal histories in their past it s fundamental to note they are not telling the truth about that he reported That someone committed a DUI years ago does not mean they have to be deported now to make us safe That makes no sense Maria Murillo wife of ICE detainee Jose Luis Zavala with the family truck she now uses with her son to make money mowing lawns in Pomona on Thursday July Photo by Terry Pierson The Press-Enterprise SCNG Another waiting meeting Back in Pomona Murillo reeled from the emotional rollercoaster of a month of starts and stops She has hope in her husband s circumstance and that the judge s decision will stand But it s mixed with concern that the authorities will find something chosen morsel of a blemish that would enable them to deport her husband It s like another waiting battle she explained That s a whole month to gather information to look for stuff against him I really doubt they are going to find They know he has a possibility to win a affair I m just scared They could out of nowhere find something and put stuff on his development that could effect him Her -year-old appears to be taking the brunt of it emotionally Murillo noted she had to take her to the exigency room about a week after the arrest for a condition that appeared to start with anxiety I have to have the mentality to stay strong for them but also for him she reminds herself referring to her family They are able to talk to Zavala The theme in their conversations He s gonna stay strong for us and hopefully he will be distributed and we can bring him home For now the reunion will have to wait We were ready to have a little gathering with the family she declared Make particular food for him My daughter had made big posters of Welcome Back Daddy We missed you The Associated Press contributed to this record