Immigration agents pick up Memphis reporter
Federal immigration authorities have picked up Manuel Duran, the reporter for Spanish-language media arrested this week while doing a live Internet video of a Memphis protest.
“They got him,” Duran’s defense attorney Ann Schiller said Thursday afternoon. She said she wasn’t sure where he is now.
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.
Earlier Thursday, a prosecutor an-
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nounced in court that the state was dropping criminal charges against Duran related to the arrest at the protest.
Two men in plain clothes, 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.
Christina Swatzell, a staff attorney with Latino Memphis, is representing Duran in the immigration case. She said she doesn’t want to comment on Duran’s case until she’s spoken with him.
She said she doesn’t know where he is, but expects he will be transported to a detention center in Mason, Tennessee, and eventually to another center in Jena, Louisiana. She said Duran has her phone number and she’s waiting for him to call her from detention.
Now that Duran has been taken into immigration custody, he could face more days in detention and eventual deportation. He could ask an immigration judge to grant him bail and later to allow him to stay in the country.
Supporters released pictures of Duran with people he’s met through work, including Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell and former Memphis Mayor A C Wharton.
They are circulating petitions for ICE to release him.
“It is unacceptable and un-American for a journalist to be arrested for doing his job,” Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus, policy director at the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, said in a statement.
“While we’re grateful that all charges were dropped, we’re deeply outraged and disappointed by the role of local law enforcement in facilitating the possible deportation of a local journalist.”
The statement also included a quote from Gabriela Marquez-Benitez at Detention Watch Network: “This clearly shows that Shelby County local officials are complicit with and are working hand-in-hand with ICE, a government agency that has a track record of egregious human rights abuses.”
The local jail is run by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff’s spokesman Earle Farrell said earlier Thursday, “As long as I’ve been here, we’ve never held anyone for ICE.”
He also said the jail would have released Duran on bond earlier after his family paid the fee, but that he refused to sign the relevant papers. Duran’s defense lawyer said Duran refused to sign because he didn’t understand the document.
Farrell said the department would make jail officials available for further comment in coming days.
Reach reporter Daniel Connolly at 529-5296.