You Don't Have To Carry Proof Of U.S. Citizenship. But Amid ICE Detainments, You Might Want To.
HuffPost
Just last week, a U.S. citizen was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In his first few months of office, President Donald Trump has targeted immigrants with tattoos and foreign university students with green cards or visas for deportation ― and a recent alarming case is raising concerns that U.S. citizens could be next.
Last Wednesday, Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a Georgia-born U.S. citizen, was arrested in Florida and charged with illegally entering the state as an “unauthorized alien.”
Even though a judge later said Lopez-Gomez’s birth certificate was “authentic” and there was no probable cause for his charge, he was still put on an ICE detainer, as the Florida Phoenix first reported.
An ICE detainer is when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement gets local authorities to agree to hold a person in jail for up to 48 hours beyond the time they would ordinarily be released so that ICE can pick them up and place them in immigration detention.
Lopez-Gomez’s case sparked protest, and he was released last Thursday. He maintains that he told a state trooper he was a U.S. citizen and had shared his Georgia ID and Social Security card ― but the Department of Homeland Security denies this, claiming that Lopez-Gomez had told a Florida Highway Patrol trooper that he was in the country illegally.
