ICE locked up man visiting Mesa for 70 hours despite valid visa

Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained a Mexican citizen for nearly three days — despite the man’s family telling Phoenix New Times that he had a valid visa to visit the country. Now, ICE is admitting that Edwar Omar Mezquita Gonzalez, the 27-year-old man the agency arrested and locked up for more than 48 hours, was in the country legally.

Gonzalez was arrested on the morning of Dec. 9 and released late Dec. 11. Asked for an explanation, ICE spokesperson Fernando Burgos told New Times that ICE officials reviewed the Gonzalez case and determined that he was lawfully present in the U.S. and “is not subject to removal proceedings at this time.”

Burgos also said Gonzalez was “briefly detained,” although he spent roughly 70 hours in immigration lockup.

Beth Strano, the executive director of the nonprofit Borderlands Resource Initiative, told New Times that Gonzalez’s detention shows “deterioration of due process” that has resulted in “more than 170 U.S. citizens being detained by ICE.”

“What Americans choose to either accept or stand up against this in this moment will define us all,” Strano said. 

A resident of Rocky Point, Mexico, Gonzalez was arrested on Dec. 9 while visiting his brother’s family in Mesa for the holidays. He was riding in the passenger seat of his brother’s work truck to run some errands when they were pulled over by a Pinal County Sheriff’s deputy in San Tan Valley. 

The deputy requested ICE “to help determine the citizenship status” of the brothers, Burgos said. Gonzalez’s sister-in-law previously told New Times that an ICE agent arrived on the scene almost immediately after the truck was stopped. (Gonzalez’s family members declined to comment for this story.) Burgos said that on the day Gonzalez was detained, ICE was conducting a “joint enforcement operation” with the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office called “Operation Road Guardian.”

The ICE agents asked both men to provide their identifying documents, which they did. Gonzalez’s older brother provided his green card, was issued a traffic citation and released. Gonzalez also provided his documents — his Mexican driver’s license, a Border Crossing Card that allows him to enter from Mexico and a Form I-94 that allows him to travel anywhere in the country through March — but was detained anyway.

‘Trump’s America’

Burgos told New Times that Gonzalez was detained because the ICE agents suspected he was working in violation of his visa conditions. Several immigration attorneys, who are not involved in Gonzalez’s case, previously told New Times that riding in his brother’s work truck may have given ICE agents the opening to detain him.

“Based on the officer’s observation,” Burgos wrote to New Times, the ICE agent “reasonably suspected of unauthorized employment and in violation of his visa conditions. Due to this suspected violation, ICE briefly detained (Gonzalez), pending further investigation as to immigration status and work authorization.”

That “brief” detention involved transporting Gonzalez 50 miles north to ICE’s Phoenix field office, where he was held until late evening on Dec. 11. He was released without his documentation, which Burgos said ICE sent to the Mexican consulate. Gonzalez has since been able to retrieve his documents, which he needs to return to Mexico.

He has already gone home. According to Sam Cooley, an immigration activist and an extended family member of Gonzalez, he was “so traumatized” by his time in ICE detention that he has already returned to Mexico. “I honestly don’t think he’ll come back,” Cooley said.

“They won,” Cooley said of ICE. “They wanted to scare people who come here legally into not coming.”

Lawmakers and local activists say Gonzalez’s ordeal — detained and jailed despite having done everything right and obtained legal permission to be in the country — is emblematic of how the Trump administration is treating immigrants. Democratic state Rep. Oscar De Los Santos, the minority leader in the Arizona House of Representatives, called the detention of Gonzalez “Trump’s America.”

“Trump would rather spread fear and cruelty through ICE than stand up to the corporate greed driving up the cost of groceries, utilities and health care,” De Los Santos said.

Jeremy Helfgot, a Phoenix activist and Democratic consultant, said Gonzalez’s prolonged detention sends a “chilling message” to potential foreign visitors to the U.S., as well as U.S. citizens.

“I’m terrified for myself and for everybody I know,” Helfgot told New Times. “There’s no due process. There’s no rule of law. In a climate like that, everyone is vulnerable, even the most privileged among us.”