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He is a naval veteran who served in Afghanistan.
And last month, he spent several days in custody for the immigration and customs authorities.
The family of Jilmar Ramos-Gomez and his immigrant rights groups say that officials owe them an explanation.
"The fact that he bears the name" he certainly played a role, said Miriam Aukerman, senior attorney at the Michigan ACLU.
Lawyers say that the 27-year-old case shows the danger. what can happen when local authorities cooperate too easily with ICE.
ICE stated that Ramos-Gomez had himself declared to the ICE agents who interviewed him that he was a foreign national living illegally in the United States.
Mother: "They do not care what he did for his country"
Ramos-Gomez was finally released after three days of detention at ICE premises. [19659002] But the mother of the veteran told reporters Wednesday that she was still in shock. "
" I almost had a heart attack when I discovered that my son was in the hands of Immigration.They do not care what he did for his country, "said Maria Gomez. "It drives me crazy."
Ramos-Gomez served in the Marines from October 2011 to August 2014, according to Military Records. The corporal and the tank crew member received numerous medals for his service.
But he went home "with his own shell" and suffers from a post-traumatic stress disorder, the ACLU said Wednesday.
"He has episodes where he disappears," said the ACLU, "and when he is found, he often does not remember where he was." [19659002] This is what happened in November, according to the ACLU, when local authorities in Grand Rapids, Michigan, arrested Ramos-Gomez after he allegedly lit a small fire in a hospital, set off a fire alarm and found himself in the helipad of the hospital.
He pleaded guilty to a charge of trespassing and a judge ordered his release. own commitment, according to his lawyer. But instead of releasing him from prison, lawyers said, local authorities handed him over to ICE.
Kent County Deputy Sheriff, Chuck DeWitt, told WOOD that his department's contract with ICE meant that the authorities had to inform the federal agency of the date Ramos-Gomez was on the job. point to be released.
"I think these are racial stereotypes," said Kessler. "And it should have been obvious that he had significant mental health problems."
Lawyers: We warned him
Advocacy groups Immigrants said the case highlights what they feared happen when the local authorities signed a cooperation agreement with ICE.
"This is precisely the type of 39 incident which we had warned that it would happen, "told the press Lawyer Hillary Scholten of the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. "And unfortunately, now."
"Research shows conclusively The collaboration of local law enforcement with ICE increases the number of cases of racial profiling and causes mistrust between the community and the forces of order", said a lawyer in a letter. "This voluntary practice can be stopped at any time – the time to do it is now."
Ramos-Gomez is not the only US citizen to have been arrested by ICE.
Last month, the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit for the detention of Peter Sean Brown, a Philadelphia-born American citizen who had been detained by ICE in Florida.
Matthew Albence, a senior ICE official, told the newspaper that the agency does not take any allegation. a detained person can be a US citizen very seriously.
ICE updates records when errors are found, Albence said in a statement to the Times, and agents who only arrest those who have probable grounds to suspect are eligible for deportation.
Ryan Browne and Joe Sutton of CNN contributed to this report.
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