Daniel Ramirez's, an immigrant protected by former President Barack Obama's program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), was petitioned to be released days after his arrest by a suit filed on Feb. 13 at Seattle federal court. The petition for habeas corpus was filed by lawyers from different law firms and institutions.
The arrest and detention of Ramirez by federal immigration agents on Friday were said to be the first arrest of an immigrant which is a DACA-eligible 'dreamer,' according to ABA Journal. DACA is a program started by the Obama administration in 2012 that allows undocumented immigrants to the United States who entered the country as minors to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and eligibility for a work permit.
Ramirez first came to U.S. as an illegal immigrant at the age of 7 now that he is already 23. He has applied and has been illegible for DACA.
According to Los Angeles Times, Daniel Ramirez Medina, 23 was arrested and detained by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement without any law violated. His being an immigrant is already protected by DACA, thus he is allowed to work and live in the United States. He was arrested at his father's home south of Seattle and is being held at a federal immigration detention facility in Tacoma, Wash.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents claimed that Ramirez is a self-confessed gang member and the reason for his arrest is the "risk of public safety". Ramirez's lawyers denied the ICE agent's claim and said that he has no gang-related criminal record but lately he was "repeatedly pressured by U.S. ICE agents to falsely admit affiliation."
Lawyers of University California at Irvine law dean Erwin Chemerinsky, Gibson Dunn partner Theodore Boutrous Jr., and Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, Public Counsel and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project were involved in the filing of the petition on behalf of Ramirez. The suit filed claimed that the arrest of Ramirez was unlawful and a violation of his rights to due process.
