Federal immigration authorities have arrested and threatened to deport a 23-year-old Mexican immigrant who was living in the United States legally under the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, according to a new lawsuit. It appears to be the first time that an immigrant covered by the program — which temporarily shields the children of undocumented immigrants from deportation — has faced removal proceedings without having committed a crime, a group of attorneys, including Harvard Law School luminary Laurence Tribe and prominent First Amendment lawyer Ted Boutrous, said in a petition filed Monday in federal court in Seattle. The story was first reported by Reuters. Daniel Ramirez Medina was taken into custody last week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Seattle during a raid on his father’s house and transferred to a facility in Tacoma, Wash., despite having committed no crime, according to the habeas corpus petition. He was brought to the United States illegally as a child, the petition says, but was twice granted legal status under the program, known as DACA. His work permit should have been valid for at least another year, according to his attorneys. “The agents who arrested and questioned Mr. Ramirez were aware that he was a DACA recipient,” the petitions reads, “yet they informed him that he would be arrested, detained, and deported anyway because he was ‘not born in this country.’” It was not immediately clear why agents went to Ramirez’s father’s house, but the petition says they…more detail
