After his first visit to Mexico in 30 years, David Valdéz was returning to the United States at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry when what should have been a routine crossing turned into a detention and deportation with little explanation. NBC 7’s Shelby Bremer reports.
A man living in the United States for decades and awaiting his green card was detained and then deported while attempting to return home through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in early March, he and his attorney say, noting they’ve gotten little explanation as to why.
David Valdéz has been in the U.S. for 30 years, arriving on a tourist visa. Currently living in the Coachella Valley, his U.S. citizen son has petitioned for his residency – giving Valdéz protection from deportation as well as work authorization and permission to travel as he waits for his green card.
After he was granted that permission to travel, his attorney Noemi Ramirez said he went to Mexico for a few days, for the first time in 30 years, to visit his mother.
When Valdéz attempted to return to the U.S. on March 2 through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, Ramirez said he was detained for 10 hours and then deported without a hearing.
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Neither Customs and Border Protection nor Immigration and Customs Enforcement responded to request for comment or questions on Valdéz’s case.
Valdéz said he was handcuffed the entire time, save for when he needed to sign something – then the officers would chain his ankles.
“They turned me around to put the handcuffs on me and that made me feel bad because I’m not a criminal,” Valdéz said in Spanish.
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“I was depressed and I felt powerless because I couldn’t do anything, because they wouldn’t listen to me,” he continued, adding that the whole time, what went through his mind was his children, especially being separated from his son with special needs.
Valdéz was then charged as an “aggravated felon,” despite having no criminal conviction, and deported to a shelter in Tijuana without a hearing under the expedited removal process, Ramirez said. She added that she’s been practicing 30 years and had never seen an incident like this before.
“I’m not sure if it’s an error. I’m not sure if it’s an abuse of power. They never gave us an explanation of why all this came up,” Ramirez said.
She said she emailed supervisors at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, who then reversed course with no explanation, allowing Valdéz to return to the U.S. on March 4.
“It had a big impact,” Ramirez said. “Emotionally, psychologically, more than anything. I mean, the way he was treated, you know, he was treated as a criminal, something – it’s an experience he’s never had before.”
“It's in a new era now,” she continued. “Unfortunately, there's a lot of abuse of power with ICE and CBP because there's no consequences, right? Now they're emboldened, and they want to deport or deny entry to as many people as possible.”
Ramirez said what happened to Valdéz could happen to anyone, and her office has seen an uptick in questions from people who say they never had reason to worry before.
“We’re starting to see more and more of these cases happening,” she said. “Even people who are residents or people who are citizens are calling our office and asking us if they could travel, even though they have a clean record, even though they’re citizens, so it’s really, you know, scaring the whole community.”
She added that Valdéz is afraid to return to Mexico and plans to wait until he gets his green card to do any further travel. She noted they anticipated that would come in the next few months but it was unclear how his removal may impact that process.
“It’s unfair,” Valdéz said in Spanish. “They know what they’re doing, and they still do these injustices.”
