Immigrant advocates said it’s the latest in a long line of controversial ICE tactics.
Over the last few months, federal agents have dumped people who judges have ordered released from the Otay Mesa Detention Center onto the streets of San Ysidro late at night. Oftentimes they are left without charged phones, money, food, or any help getting home, according to human rights volunteers trying to help this vulnerable population.
Perez, a Guatemalan national released from Otay Mesa Tuesday night, described the treatment he endured to KPBS. Despite that a federal judge had ordered their release, he said he and other detainees were handcuffed, loaded into a van and left at the San Ysidro Transit Center around 10 p.m.
“They just stopped the bus and threw us out into the street,” Perez said in Spanish. He asked KPBS not to use his first name because of a pending deportation case.
Perez did not have a working phone or any money. And while other detainees were able to call friends and relatives to pick them up, Perez doesn’t know anyone in San Diego. Even if he had a phone, he wouldn’t know who to ask for help.
“I’m from Florida, so I don’t know anyone here,” he said.
An ICE spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Perez said ICE agents arrested him in August while he was working as a landscaper in Miami. After spending more than three months in detention, a cold and tired Perez was stranded in San Ysidro on Tuesday. Then he was saved by a volunteer from Detention Resistance, a San Diego-based advocacy group.
The group has been putting recently released detainees up in hotels and helping them finalize arrangements for their travels home.
On Tuesday night, a Detention Resistance volunteer took Perez and three other released detainees to Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Logan Heights, which operates the Pope Francis Center.
The center serves as a resource hub for immigrant families. Connecting them with legal aid and hosting know-your-rights workshops. They began hosting released detainees in October, and since then more than 100 people have slept in their building, which used to be a convent for the church.
Brinkley Johnson, who manages the Pope Francis Center, said it was cruel and unnecessary to release people late at night without offering any aid.
“The process and protocols that the government takes are deliberate but they are not inevitable,” Johnson said. “And it’s important to recognize that. We could do this completely differently. We could treat people with dignity."
Despite President Donald Trump’s claims that his mass deportation campaign targets “the worst of the worst” criminals, Johnson said roughly nine out of 10 people who go through the center are working-class people with families.
“They are fathers, they are workers, they are uncles, they are good people,” Johnson said. “They are God-fearing people. They go to church, they help their neighbors and they’re often picked up while they’re working.”
That’s what happened to another man who slept in the church Tuesday night. He said federal agents arrested him in July near Orlando as he was coming home from a construction job.
“I was two miles away from home,” said the man, who identified himself as Bautista, in Spanish.
ICE agents arrested Bautista and four co-workers after a local sheriff’s deputy had pulled them over on suspicion of speeding. The local deputies called federal immigration agents after the stop. Bautista said ICE agents arrested him even though he wasn’t driving or committing any other crimes.
This kind of collaboration between local law enforcement and federal agents is common in Florida, where every county has a 287(g) agreement. The agreements, which are honored in 38 states, essentially deputize local police to enforce federal immigration law. The agreements are illegal in California.
While in detention, ICE transferred Bautista to Louisiana and then Texas before finally taking him to Otay Mesa, where he spent four months.
Although the Otay Mesa Detention Center is technically not a jail — immigration detention is administrative civil detention — Bautista said he felt imprisoned. Guards tell him where to go, what to do and when to do it.
“It’s horrible,” he said. “You don’t have any liberties.”
Bautista said he felt particularly bad for the detainees who had no money for simple luxuries like a cup of soup, coffee or bag of potato chips. That’s because their families could not afford to deposit money into their commissary accounts. People desperate enough for those things worked custodial jobs for $1 a day.
“Three days working to buy a bag of Doritos,” Bautista said.
Life in detention was among the topics of conversation among Bautista, Perez and other detainees at the Pope Francis Center Wednesday morning over coffee and breakfast. They all felt refreshed after sleeping in a clean bed and showering.
The men bonded over their families. Both teared up when asked about their children — Perez has two boys and Bautista has a daughter.
Perez cried when sharing that one of his son’s birthdays was Monday. He missed the celebration because he was detained. But now that he’s been released, he’s free to attend his other son’s birthday next week.
“He’s so excited to see me,” Perez said. “I’m going to be there for him.”
