Zero tolerance for illegal aliens.
Manuel Duran, the reporter for Spanish-language media arrested this week while doing a live Internet video of a Memphis protest, has been transferred to an immigration detention center in Louisiana, his attorney said Friday.
Duran is currently in the LaSalle ICE Processing Center, a privately-run detention center in Jena, Louisiana, said Christina Swatzell, a staff attorney with Latino Memphis who is representing Duran in the immigration case.
Jena is about 300 miles south of Memphis and reachable in roughly six hours by car.
Now that Duran has been taken into immigration custody, he could face more days in detention and eventual deportation. His attorney can ask an immigration judge to grant him bail and later to allow him to stay in the country.
Duran, 42, is from El Salvador and has lived in the Memphis area for several years, working as an on-air personality for Spanish-language radio stations and more recently running his own online news outlet, Memphis Noticias.
On Thursday, a prosecutor announced in local court that the state was dropping criminal charges against Duran related to the arrest at the protest.
Two men in plainclothes, possibly Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, had watched from the back of Judge Bill Anderson’s courtroom during the appearance at the criminal justice center at 201 Poplar.
“Unfortunately, ICE was waiting for him in the courtroom,” advocacy group Latino Memphis tweeted Thursday afternoon. “He is currently with ICE.”
ICE spokesman Bryan D. Cox said the agency took Duran into custody Thursday following his release from the local jail. Cox said Duran is living in the country illegally.
“Mr. (Duran) was ordered removed from the United States by a federal immigration judge in January 2007 after failing to appear for his scheduled court date. He has been an immigration fugitive since that time,” Cox wrote in an email.
via Weasel Zippers
Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.weaselzippers.us