Colombian Man's Swift Detention Worries Immigrant Advocates

On Wednesday, Yahaira Burgos learned that her husband, Juan Vivares, 30, had been flown to an immigration detention center in Texas, a day after he was sent to a detention center in New Jersey.

"I would like to know why they're doing everything so quick," said Burgos.

Vivares' case is unusual because he's the type of immigrant who would have previously been a low priority for deportation by former president Barack Obama's administration. Attorneys said his detention appears to mark the latest sign of President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigrants without legal status.

According to his attorney, Rebecca Press of Central American Legal Assistance, Vivares crossed the Mexican border illegally in 2011. He was detained and applied for asylum, citing the violent political situation in Colombia. He was then released and given working papers while waiting for an immigration court to hear his asylum case.

Vivares moved to the Bronx, and Burgos said they met in 2014 while he was an electrician at a laundromat where she was working. They married two years later and have a 14-month-old boy.

In November, Vivares lost his final appeal for asylum. On Tuesday, he was scheduled to meet with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the Federal Building for what his lawyer thought would be a routine check in, even though it was technically a deportation meeting.

"These kinds of appointments following the denial of an appeal are standard," she said. But when she and Vivares went to the Federal Building, "we were told that he would be taken into custody."

The arrest was unusual for two reasons. When Obama was president, he said the government couldn't afford to detain and deport every immigrant without legal status. He made people with criminal convictions the priority. But Vivares had no criminal record.

Press said Vivares also should not have been detained because his wife is an American citizen and she was sponsoring him for a green card. That case is still open.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment by WNYC. But she told the New York Times that Vivares was eligible for deportation because he lost his asylum case.

However, sending Vivares to Texas without consulting his attorney or his wife appears to violate agency guidelines. Burgos said she learned that he had been moved on Wednesday from someone at the Colombian Consulate. She then called Press, the attorney.

"When I spoke to the ICE officer at about 11 a.m. yesterday they said that he was on a van on his way to the airport and there was absolutely no way they can prevent the movement from New York to Texas," said Press.

Andrea Saenz, supervisor of the immigration practice at Brooklyn Defender Services, said it's not unusual for ICE to avoid telling a lawyer when someone is moved, or to detain people who show up for check-ins, like Vivares. But she said that typically happens to people with criminal convictions, including a man from Guyana who was detained during a check-in earlier this month in New York.

"For me what's alarming about this case is it indicates a wider group of people with final orders have more to fear than in the past," she said. Already, lawyers claim many immigrants are afraid to go to check ins with ICE.

Press said she would file an appeal with the Board of Immigration Appeals in the hopes of preventing her client from being deported, even if he has to remain in detention in the New York area. She said she could also continue the family petition if he is sent abroad.

Burgos said her son is having trouble without his father. Vivares often cared for him at night because she works the late shift as a doorwoman at an Upper East Side building. "The first day he couldn't sleep, yesterday either," she said.

Meanwhile, her union, 32BJ, is writing to ICE and to local elected officials on behalf of Vivares. 

This story has been changed to note that Vivares' meeting with ICE was on Tuesday, not Monday as originally reported.