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Community organizations and advocates in Portland, Oregon, are crying foul after an early-morning operation Sunday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement led to the warrantless arrest of 25-year-old Francisco J. Rodriguez Dominguez, an undocumented resident granted administrative relief from deportation under the 2013 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
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Rodriguez Dominguez is a soccer coach at a local elementary school with a reputation for advocacy and involvement in his community. In addition to working for the nonprofit organization Latino Network as a coordinator for a food pantry for low-income families, he is an active volunteer member of Holy Cross Episcopal Church, where he provides tech support and communications assistance to the church.
“Everyone loves Francisco. I don’t know how we will tell the kids, families, and school staff he works with about this,” Latino Network executive director Carmen Rubio told American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, Oregon. "They are going to be heartbroken to hear he has been taken away.”
Brought to the United States at the age of 5, Rodriguez Dominguez is a native of the Michoacan state capital of Morelia, in Mexico. In 2013, he became a part of the DACA program, which grants the right to undocumented immigrants to enroll in college, legally find employment and obtain licenses to drive.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, over 750,000 young unauthorized immigrants have received deportation reprieves under the program while non-profit advocacy organization Educators for Fair Consideration claims that 2.1 million U.S. residents may qualify for DACA deferrals.
Nonetheless, Rodriguez Dominguez's temporary relief status may have been complicated by an arrest for driving under the influence. According to the ACLU, he entered a DUI diversion program in December 2016, eager to complete the program requirements, including court dates and required meetings.
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For the ACLU, the detention represents a “disturbing and confusing action” taken by ICE.
"A judge had already determined that he wasn't a danger to the community or a flight risk. So, why is ICE showing up at his house early on Sunday morning? These kinds of brutal tactics do not keep us safe. It just makes people scared to live their lives and pushes immigrant communities further into the shadows," ACLU Legal Director Mat dos Santos said.
Despite promises from President Donald Trump to preserve the Obama-era protections for the DACA or so-called “Dreamer” youth — claiming in February that his administration would “show great heart” regarding what he claims is personally “a very, very difficult subject” — the Republican president has also come under fire from critics on the far right of his party, who claim that his pledges to retain the deferred action program is tantamount to an “in-your-face betrayal” of immigrant scapegoaters.
"Despite Francisco's best efforts to make good on his mistake, ICE has taken the position that even a misdemeanor DUI eligible for diversion is enough to end DACA status," Andrea Williams, executive director of Causa Oregon, told the ACLU. “This policy is tearing apart his family, our communities, and does nothing to keep us safer.”
Illustrating the confusing stance of the administration, earlier this month ICE published a series of ominous tweets implying that DACA status would not prevent residents from falling prey to enforcement and removal operations.
Rodriguez Dominguez isn't the first “Dreamer” to be unexpectedly incarcerated by ICE. Earlier this month, 22-year-old Daniela Vargas was arrested after participating in a press conference held by the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance in Jackson, Mississippi, where she denounced ICE for raiding her family and detaining her father and brother.
In Seattle, Washington, ICE detained Daniel Ramirez Medina in February while raiding his home to arrest his father. While Vargas was released, Ramirez Medina recently spent his 24th birthday at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington — the same ICE prison where Rodriguez Dominguez is currently being held.
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The detention of Rodriguez Dominguez shines a light on an increased focus by authorities on immigrants who had previously been considered largely exempt from enforcement priorities. Facing pressure from community advocates and the immigrant community, the Obama administration required ICE to prioritize serious criminals.
However, the agency has quickly adjusted to the anti-immigrant stance of the Trump administration and is now using tactics such as warrantless raids, “collateral” sweeps of suspected unauthorized residents and ruses such as pretending to be local law enforcement for the purpose of tricking residents into opening their doors to ICE personnel.
“Before, we used to be told, ‘You can’t arrest those people,’ and we’d be disciplined for being insubordinate if we did,” an unnamed ICE veteran told The New York Times last month following high-profile nationwide raids that spread fear through immigrant communities. “Now those people are priorities again. And there are a lot of them here.”
The ACLU, Causa Oregon and Latino Network are calling for ICE to release Rodriguez Dominguez from detention and are asking people to contact the agency to demand his release.
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