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On Dec. 3, Omar Ramos Jimenez went to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Buffalo Field Office in Batavia for what he was told would be a routine check-in, one like others over a number of years. He has yet to return home.
Ramos Jimenez, a native and citizen of Mexico, is being held at ICE’s Buffalo Service Processing Center in Batavia, one of the largest detention facilities in New York. Though he and his family have secured resources to hire a private immigration attorney, who has argued that his detention is unlawful, they have been unable to secure his release.
“My father has been in this country for over 20 years. He has built a life here,” said Cassandra Bocanegra, his daughter, at a Dec. 5 protest rally. “He’s a community member. He’s a friend. He’s Pato Omar, and he’s not just my father, but he’s the community father.”
The Rochester Beacon made multiple visits to the facility last year, observing immigration court cases involving detainees like Ramos Jimenez. Most of the cases observed were in the midst of the legal process. In a few instances, asylum applicants chose to voluntarily return to their home country.
As ICE has continued to make arrests here and nationwide, in line with Trump administration policies, local community organizations have united in protest against these activities.
While the recent deaths of Renee Nicole Goode and Alex Pretti in Minnesota have brought immigration and border patrol officers’ actions under greater scrutiny, the journeys of detainees remain largely hidden from view. Immigration advocates and attorneys point to a convoluted system with limited resources for detainees. Nonprofit agencies that offer legal aid are overburdened and can’t meet the demand that has grown with ICE’s actions, Bocanegra observes.
Ramos Jimenez was detained after being asked to appear in person for the installation of a mobile app for check-ins. A habeas corpus petition filed by attorney Grace Zaiman states that he was previously taken into custody in 2013 before being processed for removal proceedings. At that time, Ramos Jimenez was released on a $1,500 bond. Since then, he has reported to ICE for regular check-ins, by phone or in person.
Ramos Jimenez “was re-detained without any notice, any hearing, or any individualized determination of dangerousness or flight risk,” the petition states. “After over twelve years of dutiful compliance on his reporting and never missing a court date or check in, Petitioner was lured into custody under false pretenses and snatched from his family and community.”
Bocanegra says she and her family have been able to keep in contact with their father during his detention.
“I have seen many people get detained in immigration court while appearing for their hearings,” says Aomer Mohamed, a local immigration attorney. So, what is the person supposed to do? What is the legal pathway then?”
In immigration court
For U.S. citizens and non-citizen residents alike, the Sixth Amendment guarantees due process rights of criminal defendants such as notification of charges and a speedy and public trial—rights that in many cases have not been extended to undocumented immigrants in detention.
Detainees in front of an immigration court judge often sit alone, without family, support systems or, in some cases, an effective interpreter. Bocanegra’s family had enough resources to get their father an attorney who could navigate the habeas corpus process, they say. But that alone cost $7,500.
“Resilience is continuing to do the things the government doesn’t want us to do,” says Bocanegra. “Whatever you can do is more than enough.”
The Batavia detention facility has an official 650-bed capacity. While overcrowding and the spread of COVID-19 have been more recently reported, the facility has seen a variety of documented instances of detainee mistreatment. A report from the Office of Detention Oversight found that staff used chemical agents to move detainees, who did not pose a documented threat, without exploring other methods.
For Mohamed, many of the conditions faced during detention feel inhumane. An immigrant with little grasp of English or American laws and systems would not understand the process or be able to get adequate legal counsel.
Bocanegra’s father has lived in the United States for over 20 years, as a community member and local businessman. Family, friends, local advocates and elected officials joined her and the New York Immigration Coalition, where she works, in early December to protest Ramos Jimenez’s detention.
In certain cases the Beacon observed at Batavia, the court was unable to secure a translator fluent in a detainee’s native language before beginning their hearing. Some detainees were transferred to different facilities, before their defense attorneys knew their whereabouts.
“I mean, it’s unimaginable, to be honest with you,” says Mohamed. “There’s the fear of even communicating directly (with immigration) agencies, because they’re just afraid that if they (put) themselves out there, that they’re just basically risking their safety.”
Private immigration attorneys in New York often leave nonprofit agencies for higher-paying jobs out of state, according to the Immigration Coalition. Those who remain typically have overburdened caseloads. Immigrants without the resources to obtain better representation often fail to understand the legal system.
“If you don’t understand the system because you don’t understand the language and you’re still expected to defend yourself, that’s incredibly discouraging and frustrating,” says Bocanegra, who is NYIC’s senior manager of organizing and strategy in the Finger Lakes. “There’s all of these things happening and maybe there’s an interpreter, but there’s no guarantee.”
In addition to asking the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York to issue a writ of habeas corpus ordering ICE to release Ramos Jimenez immediately, or provide him “with a constitutionally adequate, individualized hearing before an impartial adjudicator at which Respondents bear the burden of establishing that Petitioner’s continued detention is justified,” his attorney wants the court to bar his removal from the jurisdiction of the Buffalo Field Office or from New York.
Pushing for expanded protections
Immigration advocates throughout the state have long championed the New York for All Act, legislation that would expand on protections seen in sanctuary jurisdictions like Rochester, prohibiting state and local government agencies from:
■ colluding with ICE,
■ disclosing sensitive information, and
■ diverting personnel or other resources to further federal enforcement activities.
The legislation has seen broad support from local elected officials in the state Legislature, as advocates including Bocanegra campaign for key policy reforms they say would drastically expand the safety immigrant groups have when living in the community.
“(Immigrants) are not murderers. They are not criminals. They are mothers and fathers and children and people just trying to go about their lives,” said Pastor Wanda Wilson at the Dec. 5 rally. “We come here together to bend the arc towards justice, even if we have to do it in the darkest of times.”
With border czar Tom Homan’s announcement Wednesday that 700 ICE and Customs and Border Patrol officers would leave Minneapolis, weeks of protest throughout the region and nation may prove more effective than ever before.
“I hope that every single person who is here remembers everything that was said, everything that I said, everything that I called to action, everything that we need to do as a community, as a state, in order to ensure the safety of our communities,” Bocanegra said at the Dec. 5 protest. “Because what happened to my father, well, it should never happen to anyone. This country was built by immigrants, and it has always been known as a home for immigrants.”
Narm Nathan is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and a member of the Oasis Project’s inaugural cohort.
The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. See “Leave a Reply” below to discuss on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing [email protected].
We have today because of what we had yesterday. It is really that basic. A broken immigration system and that “can” has been kicked down the road by our COLLECTIVE leadership for decades. One thing is sure, laws on the books have been ignored. If one doesn’t like those laws or disagrees with them, there is a process in place to address that. That should have you pointing, screaming and demonstrating in the direction of our Washington DC leadership. Dems and Rep. alike!! Last but not least, comparing anything happening in these United States with Nazi Germany, Gestapo or their tactics is disgusting. Ask my father all about that. He lived it. The comparison is being way out of touch with reality. But then again, we are not very good when it comes to world history and for that matter U.S. History. We can’t even teach the basics, the three R’s. Just look at our pathetic RCSD.
There has been bi-partisan support on Immigration a number of times, including Trump’s first term and a path for citizenship for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA. The agreement was televised with Trump’s support. Then after speaking with Bannon, Miller, and others he reversed himself and blew it up. Another bi-partisan agreement was tentatively agreed to under Biden giving the GOP almost everything. Trump blew it up as using it as a campaign issue was more important than solving the problem. My father and three uncles, WW II vets one in the D-Day invasion, lived it too. The rise of dictators is oppression and loss of freedoms. It does not always result in millions of dead from slave labor and genocide. Trump’s regime does mirror the rise of fascism in Germany and other places. Hitler was in power six years before he invaded Poland and another two years before the final solution. Education is a national problem. Except for those who care mostly for tax cuts and /or bigotry, guess who the 50% of Americans below the seventh grade reading comprehension level voted for?
Thanks for your reply. I may not agree with all said, but a response with thought and intellect is appreciated. My father thought that we might learn and apply, “never again.” He passed at 101. We immigrated to America in 1957. I was 12. I am extremely appreciative of my parents sacrifice for us boys. I am proud to be an American. Semper Fi.
You were doing sooo well, until, tax cuts sacrificing education. Rochester spends what, about 20K per student? In that effort the bar has been lowered to increase the graduation rate. Kids graduating from the RCSD, if they graduate, don’t do very well in college. East High has done a better job with the help of millions of dollars the U of R received to rescue that program. It will be turned over to the RCSD soon. That will then, over a short period of time, bring East High in line with the other educational failures. That’s not to say that the kids are the problem, it’s the educational system. That system refuses to teach the way kids learn. Keep in mind all kids are born with innate skills and or gifts, ALL KIDS. It’s up to the SYSTEM to help kids identify those innate skills or gifts. Care to check what the per student cost at East High is? That failure does not reside with those who are stealing (in your estimation) from the kids with tax breaks, the RCSD/RCSB and the Teacher’s Union can stand up and take a bow for that. Let me include one individual in that failure, Dr. Adam Urbanski, chief of the educational failure in urban Rochester. Decades of it. Again don’t blame the kids nor the tax breaks. Semper Fi.
Comparison of today’s Trumpian ICE tactics to those of the Nazis does NOT mean comparison to the death camps. It means a comparison to the level of the violence and questionable legality of the tactics being utilized by the Nazis in the early 1930s to the existing tactics utilized by the ICE thugs. The comparison is valid. As Pastor Martin Niemöller about that. As to who isn’t very good at US or world history, America’s Trumpsters and other associated Right Wing lunatics have turned that ignorance into a weapon of mass misinformation.
The level of violence is coming directly and solely from those who are paid and those who are ignorant of history, the facts and the realization that the last administration opened the borders, which brought in millions of unvetted, with zero health consideration as in vaccinations. While I feel for those who came here illegally, I don’t blame them for taking the opportunity. I would prefer, however, that the immigration process be carried out legally by our government. Where does lawlessness stop? Are you willing to allow lawlessness in other aspects of our daily lives? Or just special occasions approved by you?
Hey Josh, thanks for the alternative facts. And I REALLY enjoy that Big Lie about those who protest against the Trump regime being paid to do so. A claim right up there with the Felon Fuhrer’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen, that Ukraine attacked Russia, and that illegal aliens were eating pets in Ohio. But to answer your question, no, I’m not willing to accept lawlessness as a daily event in our lives. That’s why I oppose Trump, his Jan. 6 thugs and his ICE brownshirts.
I am for anything that strengthens sanctuary cities. This law does not go far enough. Local and state police should be ordered to arrest any ICE or CBP agents violating the laws and hold for state trial charges. Democrats in Congress, who seem to always miss the moment, have put forth meaningless reforms. These agents are already required to use actual judicial warrants and use of force standards that match local police. They are ignored by a corrupt Bondi DOJ just as dozens of court decisions on this issue are ignored. Hundreds of assaults and even murders of peaceful protestors by ICE, legals and citizens included, have not been prosecuted. Billions of tax dollars are about to be spent for privatized ” Detention Camps ” around the country. The majority taken away have no criminal record and about 75% are not felons. There must be even millions more in the streets and organizing political pressure. The time for the Schumers and other neo-liberal Dems to go was long ago. The Trump regime loves the smell of evil and corruption in the morning, every morning.
Thank God for ICE. Because without that controversy, that failure of our collective leadership in Washington, DC, you would have to look in the mirror to identify the problem. Remember this James Bertolone, “We have today, because of what we had yesterday.” Think about that and then get out the mirror and identify one aspect of the problem. Semper Fi.
Sadly, the words “asylum”, “due process “ and “constitutionality” no longer have meaning in our present government. Someone who has been in our community for 20 years without criminality, following the rules of the legal process, being lured into custody under false pretenses, does not deserve to be anywhere near a detention center. We’re just only now getting over our horrid treatment of the Japanese-Americans during WWII and we’re detaining many thousands of non-criminals again. Shame on us and shame on our government. The racism of Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem and, yes, Donald Trump has dragged us back in history. This is a very dark time for our nation.
Americans are not “getting over” the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII for the simple reason that the vast, vast, vast majority of them have no knowledge of that such internment ever took place. Just like they have no knowledge of the actions that accompanied the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s. And quite honestly, in either case I doubt that they’d care if they did know.
Just yesterday someone asked me whether Omar was still in detention. Thank you for keeping these inhuman actions towards Omar and so many others in Batavia and elsewhere in the public eye locally.
For starters, our kids don’t know the three “R’s”
Omar? You don’t think our kids are aware of that situation, do you?
If the RCSD got as much attention as some of the other issues…..we would have graduates.
History is not being taught nor current events, period.
It’s the last thing on the minds of those intellectual types running the RCSD.
Don’t blame the kids for populating the legal system, that has its roots in the educational failure in the RCSD/RCSB