Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz’s family was caught by immigrant agents while his dog was kept in Van Nuys walking for a few days, just as he was about to start his high school at Reseda Charter High School.
According to U.S. Rep. Luz Rivas (D-North Hollywood), his family was once again caught in measures this week when they learned that immigration and customs enforcement had transferred him to Arizona.
Guerrero-Cruz was moved out of the Adelanto detention center in San Bernardino County and taken to a holding facility in Arizona in the middle of the desert, according to the congresswoman’s office.
On Tuesday night, he planned to be transferred to Louisiana, a major hub for deportation, but at the last minute he was taken off the plane and returned to Adelanto, who is currently in custody.
“Benjamin and his family deserve answers to the Ice’s inconsistent and chaotic decision-making process, including why Benjamin was initially transferred to Arizona, why he was subsequently transferred to Louisiana, and why his family was not notified by people on the ice during the process,” Rivas said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Rivas introduced a bill requiring ICE to notify the detainee’s immediate family members within 24 hours of the detainee’s transfer. Currently, ICE can notify family members only if the detainee dies.
“The stories Benjamin was detained and sent without warning or notice are like many other detainees in Los Angeles and across the country,” Rivas said. “Many immigrant families in my area were unaware of their loved ones’ whereabouts after being detained by Ice.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The agency has previously said Guerrero-Cruz is awaiting deportation from Chile after his overdue visa, which requires him to leave the United States on March 15, 2023.
According to his family, Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz, who showed up at school, was an avid football player and older brother.
(Rita Silva)
Guerrero-Cruz was arrested on August 8 and held a week in downtown Los Angeles, during which time he was briefly interpreted as a detention center in Santa Ana before being transferred to Adelanto on August 15.
His experience of being pingpong around different facilities is widespread in the Trump administration’s view as the biggest deportation effort in U.S. history.
This trend is also reflected in ICE’s flight data. According to a widely cited database created by immigration rights advocate Tom Cartwright, the agency conducted 2,022 domestic transfer flights from May to July, a 90% increase from the same period last year.
Cartwright suggested in his July report that the rise could be related to the need to optimize bed space, as the number of detentions surged from 39,152 on December 29 to 56,945 on July 26.”
Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the Humanitarian Immigration Rights Alliance, called the Trump administration’s detention policy cruel, saying they seemed to be detaining people for as long as possible and that “except for no reason, they moved them to the place for no reason.”
“The facts that these stupid transfers cause in the middle of the night lead to chaos, chaos and the opportunity to minimize legal representation do not seem to bother them,” he said in a statement.
Houston-based immigration attorney Susham M. Modi said he has witnessed the rise in transfer frequency of people detained by ICE recently.
“[Detainees are] He said: “I’m also often transferred to places where there are fewer lawyers.
Modi said that while families can use ICE’s online detention locator to find loved ones, it is not always up to date and some families don’t know how to use it. He added that when detainees are transferred, they are usually unable to make calls from the detention center until someone deposits the money into their account – another obstacle to keeping their families up to date on whereabouts.
