By Jackie Llanos, States Newsroom
The federal government is blaming a U.S. citizen for his arrest during a traffic stop in Leon County last week under a temporarily blocked state immigration law.
A senior official with the Department of Homeland Security said Monday that Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a 20-year-old born in Georgia, was detained Wednesday after he told a Florida Highway Patrol trooper that he was in the country illegally.
“Immediately after learning the individual was a United States citizen, he was released,” a DHS senior official said in a statement Monday. “When individuals admit to committing a crime, like entering the country illegally, they will of course be detained while officers investigate.”
The trooper charged Lopez-Gomez following a traffic stop with illegally entering the state as an “unauthorized alien,” under a new state law that a federal judge temporarily suspended on April 4. Lopez-Gomez, released from Leon County jail Thursday evening, insists he told the trooper he was a U.S. citizen born in Georgia, handed over his Social Security card and Georgia ID, which meets federal security standards under the REAL ID Act of 2005.
The case garnered national attention following Florida Phoenix’s reporting on Thursday.
The arrest report states that Lopez-Gomez said he was in the country illegally and had entered Florida illegally, but turned over his ID. However, the arrest report doesn’t mention the Social Security card. The trooper stopped the car Wednesday morning because the driver was going 78 mph in a 65 mph zone, according to the report. Lopez-Gomez was a passenger in the car with two others on his way to a flooring job from Cairo, Georgia, to Tallahassee.
Amilcar Sales-Lopez, a family member of the driver and boss of the crew, said he arrived at the scene on U.S. Highway 319 because the men called him as they were getting pulled over. Sales-Lopez told the two troopers that Lopez-Gomez was a U.S. citizen, but first had to hand over his Florida driver’s license, he said in a phone interview with Florida Phoenix.
“He said I had to verify who I was or that they would arrest me,” Sales-Lopez said in Spanish.
“They wanted to intimidate me,” he added.
The arrest report doesn’t mention that Sales-Lopez was present during the arrest.
The 20-year-old’s first language is Tzotzil, a Mayan language, his mother told the Phoenix. He lived in Mexico from the time he was 1-year-old until four years ago, when he returned to Georgia.
The Phoenix has requested video footage of the arrest from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. A spokesperson from the department repeated in a statement to the Phoenix Friday that Lopez-Gomez had stated he was in the country illegally and that he had a federal detainer issued on him.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a detainer asking the jail to hold Lopez-Gomez for 48 hours after his arrest. A Leon County judge cited the ICE hold as the reason she lacked jurisdiction to release Lopez-Gomez, even though she found no probable cause for the arrest after inspecting the Georgia birth certificate and Social Security card his mom brought to court.
The ICE hold states that DHS determined Lopez-Gomez could be deported based on biometric confirmation of his identity and his statements to an immigration officer or “reliable evidence.”
DHS did not respond when the Phoenix asked whether the arresting trooper had federal authorization to act as an immigration official. Approximately 1,400 troopers have completed 40 hours of training to question and arrest people they suspect are in the country without authorization.
Although Attorney General James Uthmeier argues the federal prohibition on enforcement of the law, SB 4C, doesn’t apply to law enforcement, he sent a memo Friday to FHP, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, police chiefs, and sheriffs stating that they shouldn’t arrest or detain anyone under the suspended law.
U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams extended her prohibition on the enforcement of Florida’s immigration law until April 29.
