Twenty-three-year-old Daniel Ramirez Medina was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents last week for being in the Seattle apartment of his father, whom agents were targeting for arrest. While apprehending his father, authorities also detained Ramirez, who was born in Mexico and came to the U.S. when he was seven. But it seems they ran into a little problem: He's here legally under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program and also has no criminal record. Oops!
That's when ICE agents appear to have totally fabricated Ramirez's gang affiliation so they could justify arresting him in what his attorney calls "one of the most serious examples of governmental misconduct" he's ever seen. (Also, if true, easily one of the most embarrassing examples. Look at that document above—it looks like a two-year-old experimenting with an eraser got ahold of Ramirez’s statement.)
Ramirez's lawyers have a filed a case challenging Ramirez’s detention in a US District Court in Seattle, but the Department of Justice is claiming the federal court has no jurisdiction over a matter being handled in immigration courts.
According to the brief filed by Ramirez’s lawyers, he originally wrote: “I came in and the officers said I have gang affiliation with gangs so I wear an orange uniform. I do not have a criminal history and I’m not affiliated with any gangs.” But ICE agents allegedly eliminated the first phrase so the statement instead begins: "I have gang affiliation with gangs so I wear an orange uniform...”