From Taco Drive to detention: An immigrant’s 25-year American dream interrupted by ICE

Of Jordan Coll | Edited by Patricia Guadalupe

Oscar Muñoz moved to the United States when he was 14 years old, without knowing where he would lead her; All he knew was that he would leave him at the destination, and then the ice called.

“There are people who did not steal anything, and they (ice) took them to the frontal border, and now they are here,” he said in a phone call Slice of cultivation From the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, a private ice installation in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania.

“I built everything here; 25 years have passed!” Muñoz added, moving to the United States from Puebla, a city in central Mexico.

Here in the United States is the proud owner of Taco Drive In Jersey City, NJ, walking to the restaurant, you will see a statue of freedom upside down Jarritos Soda bottles and the crunchy smell of Mexican style tacos.

Muñoz has two children born in the United States

The way he ended up in an ice installation at almost four and a half hours of his family is a reality that many immigrants to Trump 2.0 today. Immigration sphere. Muñoz, who has spent almost a year at the installation, said Slice of cultivation The harsh conditions he faced at the installation: “Immigration caught me and now I’m here!” He described various conditions and challenges that he faced to the point of his arrest by Hoboken Police, NJ.

From there, he was taken to a nearby arrest center where he spent two days, and then transported to the Moshannon Valley’s processing center.

“They even charge me for the air I breathe!” He exclaimed and mentioned issues that received basic hygienic supplies such as toothpaste and deodorant sent from their loved ones outside. At the detention center, at least it can cook. “We all share a kitchen together and turn, so I will (detained) a burrito or a taco, obviously not the way to the restaurant, but they still like it.”

In several calls with Muñoz, he described being at the ice installation for a year without access to probation. In an attempt to visit Muñoz, Slice of cultivation He was denied the visit and was told to leave the installation. We had been taking pictures of the installation in the parking lot and they told us that we could not enter because of it.

Each year, almost 40,000 immigrants They are held in immigration arrest facilities across the country. According to immigration and US customs app (Ice), an average of 872 immigrants They were arrested at the end of January and less than 600 in early February of this year.

The prevalence and concentration of ice arrest centers throughout the United States are mainly south -west or south -East of the states: fourteen of the 20 largest immigration centers are in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, according to a Data set by immigration.

A report by Students of the Beasley of the University of the University of Temple and the Immigrant Rights Group based in Philadelphia together He found that the detainees at the Moshannon Valley processing center were “kept in punitive, inhuman and dangerous conditions”. The report was collected after interviewing 77 immigrants hosted at the installation.

The center, an old federal prison, was reopened as an ice installation by 2021, with a capacity of 1,876, making it one of the largest northern immigration detention centers -East.

Moshannon is directed by the GEO Group, Inc., A private company that receives federal funds to oversee more than a dozen ice arrest centers across the country.

A Congressional Budget Office report Revised by Slice of cultivation It shows that the Department of Security and Support of the National Security Department of the United States, its budget for detention centers, is currently $ 9.3 million, up to $ 8.7 million last year.

)[Muñoz] He was released with regard to the state, but immigration was there to take him to pre -trial detention, “said Gregory Jachts, the lawyer who assumed the criminal case of Muñoz.

Ice may intervene to custody of the people released by the courts, even while criminal accusations against them are not yet resolved, as these cases became more packed by Trump Administration.

He was previously charged under the High -Jersey Criminal Division Supreme Court for theft and violation, and criminal mischief to damage goods last year while poisoning, according to the affidavit obtained by Culture slice.

A judge in March dismissed the robbery and allegations of abuse, and Muñoz admitted in an agreement of supplement to the accusation of criminal miscarriages, according to court records. It faces the sentence on April 25.

Jachts said that Muñoz, like many immigrants who are taken by ice agents, ended up spending several months in more than a year in federal custody “for something that is a relatively smaller position.”

A data set listed by ICE shows the monthly legal processing in the categories: “Title 42 expulsions, administrative returns, execution and removal”, by virtue of which a total of 579,000 immigrants were deported by 2023 – the data of the last year are available – Ice Based data.

The most current figure of deportations based on title 42 is not known in their place but data From 2020 to 2023 they indicate that approximately 3 million immigrants from the southern border -they were again deported to their respective countries.

Since President Donald Trump has been sworn in office for a second term, he has kept the directive of his campaign on mass deportations across the country.

Almost 37,660 migrants They were deported in the period of one month under Trump’s second term; According to one PBS Immigration Analysis: With more than a quarter of this population after legal or procedural protection to be deported, according to the Migration Policy Institute data set, a think tank on immigration policy.

The rounding of unauthorized immigrants first addressed those accused of violent crimes, although less than half of the 8,200 estimated individuals arrested from January 20 to February 2 have been related to the criminal.

Until this year, data collected by transactional records access Clearinghouse (Track), a non -profit data distribution organization, shows that 47,928 immigrants were detained since April 6 (the most current data), conform In place, with 46 percent or 22,046 of the detainees without criminal record.

The wave of mass deportations in the United States climbs to family homes, echoed the first Trump administration under immigration of “zero tolerance” secrecy In 2017. Ice law officers were commissioned to eliminate four -month -old children from asylum.

In the state of New Jersey, approximately 2.25 million immigrants experienced in 2023, including about 450,000 who do not have a legal state in the United States, according to the Government. data.

“We are a nation of immigrants and we follow the process due,” said Jersey City Council, Youusef Saleh, who describes himself as the proud son of Palestinian immigrants and a lawyer raised in The Heights, a vibrant immigrant community. In the city of Jersey, more than 40 languages ​​are spoken through more than half of homes, and almost 50% of residents were born outside the United States

“When it comes to violent criminals, the federal government has every right to use everything in its power to make a detention, but when it comes to the 287 (g) program It encourages states to have essentially a reward program for immigrants, “he added, referring to the program under the Immigration and Nationality Act, Allowing local law agents to have an open policy with ICE officials, when it comes to processing immigrants who have no legal state in the United States

Thirty-eight states have already agreed to fulfill the ice; New Jersey is none state Law.

The federal government has recently added hundreds of thousands of newly issued immigration arrest mandates to a national database Used by local police under the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), according to NPRMaking immigrants more susceptible to local police arrests without a signed order from an immigration judge.

Saleh presses the legislation that states immigrants’ protections in the state after a resolution approved by Jersey City, called “Golden Dorta of America”, such as informed by Culture slice, Given its proximity to the Statue of Freedom. In addition, the city councilor of Jersey, Frank Gilmore letter At the Moshannon Valley processing center in support of the release of Muñoz.

In 2018, the state issued the Immigrant trust directivesomething that limits the type of assistance that local agents provide to federal immigration officials.

Muñoz’s 18 -year -old daughter Niomy, who was recently admitted to Columbia University for Engineering Slice of cultivation Who tried to visit his father, but he was denied access to the facility so that he did not have his “real id” at the time of his arrival.

Last December, he sent a letter to the judge in the case of his father and with whom he shared the family Slice of cultivation. “I urge you respectfully to consider the impact of my father’s arrest on my brother and allow him to stay in the United States,” he wrote. “Oscarscar is not only a great father, but also a person who has so much to contribute to this community. Its launch would bring a relief and joy without limits to my family and would allow him to remain the model and the support system of which my brother and I would depend.”