- Messages
- 22,691
“… He was on his way to wash a car when he glanced up and saw co-workers sprinting off. A woman frantically motioned for him to flee. His heart raced as he tried to find the source of their alarm.
Confused and frightened, Javier Diaz Santana jumped over the wall behind the car wash in the San Gabriel Valley.
… Breathless, Diaz stopped. One of the vehicles pulled over, blocking his way. Masked, armed men exited, yelling. He tried to understand. He couldn’t see a badge. One had a vest with the letters “HSI” — Homeland Security Investigations, an arm within ICE.
One seemed to be demanding something. Diaz gestured at his ears.
He could not hear. And he couldn’t speak.
Diaz, 32, is deaf and mute.
He thought that presenting his Real ID driver’s license would keep him safe. He has legal permission to be here. He came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was about 5 years old and had been granted permission to work more than a decade ago under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. He has no criminal history.
He took his wallet from his pocket. An agent grabbed it and wouldn’t give it back.
Diaz took out his phone so he could type a message about his disability. They took that too. Then they cuffed his hands and shoved him into the SUV. He had no way to communicate.…”
“…
And so began a surreal near month Diaz never could have imagined taking place in the United States. He was sent to an immigration detention center in El Paso, where he spent weeks unable to communicate with his attorney or his family. At times, Diaz received paperwork in Spanish — a language he cannot read.
His experience raises serious questions, beyond whether people who are in this country with legal protection should be seized and detained by immigration agents. If ICE is going to apprehend people with disabilities, shouldn’t agents follow federal law and make the required accommodations available?
In a statement, an unidentified senior Department of Homeland Security official said medical staff provided Diaz “with a communications board and an American Sign Language interpreter.”
The statement ignored the fact that Diaz has DACA protection provided by the government. After the Times followed up again about that protection, a senior DHS official said in an email, “Deferred action does not confer any form of legal status in this country.”
“The facts are this individual is an illegal alien. This Administration is not going to ignore the rule of law,” the original statement read….”