Father faces deportation after traffic court arrest
Lake Geneva resident, business owner was trying to pay ticket
The arrest and detention of a longtime Lake Geneva man by immigration agents when he went to pay a traffic ticket is proof that such agents are deployed in local courthouses in search of illegal immigrants, an immigrants rights organization said Wednesday.
A petition has been launched by immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera calling for the release of Eduardo Gualajara Castro, 46, who was arrested April 25 at the Walworth County Courthouse in Elkhorn.
Castro is married, has four U.S.-born children, has lived in the United States since 1998 and in Lake Geneva for 17 years, a statement from the organization said.
He runs a small business that employs three people making wooden pallets for factories and is currently
applying for a U visa, which creates a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrant victims of crime, according to the statement.
Castro was ordered to be removed from the U.S. after trying to enter the country 20 years ago and was cited for driving under the influence more than 12 years ago, for which he paid a fine and attended required classes, according to the statement.
His only other encounter with law enforcement was for a ticket for driving without a license — the ticket he was attempting to pay when he was arrested, the organization said.
“Eduardo is a loving father, the employer of three people,” Voces Executive Director Christine Neumann-Ortiz said.
“Separating someone like Eduardo from his family will only harm his community and traumatize his children.”
His family declined to provide additional details about his case to the media pending legal consultation, Neumann-Ortiz said.
Castro had a driver’s license until a law was passed in 2006 by the Wisconsin Legislature that requires proof of citizenship or legal residency status — including a Social Security number — to obtain a driver’s license, Neumann-Ortiz said.
Walworth County Sheriff’s Capt. Scott McClory confirmed Castro was taken into custody at the courthouse by ICE agents.
McClory added that Sheriff ’s Office policy is to cooperate with all law enforcement agencies in courtroom arrests but deferred further comment on Castro’s arrest to ICE.
Shawn Neudauer, an ICE spokesman in Minneapolis, said agency policy prohibits the release of information on Castro “at this time” and claimed that ICE does not track the number of apprehensions made by its agents in local courthouses.
Voces spokesman Sam Singleton-Freeman disputed that claim, saying his organization has anecdotal reports of two other ICE detentions at the Walworth County Courthouse and at least one at the Racine County Courthouse.
“But our information is very far from complete ,” Single ton immigrant
Castro was ordered to be removed from the U.S. after trying to enter the country 20 years ago and was cited for driving under the influence more than 12 years ago, for which he paid a fine and attended required classes.
Freeman said.
A phone message left Wednesday for Walworth County Clerk of Circuit Court Kristina Secord was not returned.
The online petition to ICE Louisiana Field Office Director David D. Rivera urges him to use his administrative power to release Castro from ICE detention in Louisiana.
“What is happening to Eduardo and his family shows a disturbing trend of ICE resuming their presence in courthouses, after Voces de la Frontera and the national (American Civil Liberties Union) organized to push them out in 2014,” Neumann-Ortiz said.
“They have returned to sensitive areas where they shouldn’t be, and they are clearly trolling through traffic citation court records looking for community members.”
In January a directive from Deputy ICE Director Thomas D. Homan formalized the agency’s policy for civil immigration enforcement action inside local courthouses.
According to the directive, when practicable, the action should take place in nonpublic areas, be conducted in collaboration with court security staff and utilize the court building’s nonpublic entrances and exits.
Enforcement actions should target specific undocumented immigrants with criminal convictions, gang members and national security or public safety threats, according to the directive. Actions may also target those who have been ordered removed from the U.S. but failed to depart, and those who have re-entered the country illegally after being removed.
The directive maintains such arrests are consistent with long-standing practices by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and are often necessitated by the unwillingness of jurisdictions to cooperate with ICE in the transfer of illegal immigrants from prisons and jails.