Mexico’s top diplomat in the U.S. said Thursday he is “concerned” about the recent arrest of an alleged illegal immigrant gang member by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE arrested Daniel Ramirez-Medina, an alleged illegal immigrant gang member, last week after they encountered him at a home in Washington targeting a previously deported felon. While Medina had received amnesty under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, DACA’s rules don’t allow recipients to be gang members. (RELATED: ICE Deports Hundreds Of Criminal Illegal Aliens)
“We are concerned because these boys were in the U.S. with adequate legal status…Daniel not only applied for DACA once, but he renewed his status in 2016,” Mexico’s undersecretary for foreign affairs in North America Carlos Sada told Radio Formula. He said the arrest of Medina has caused “nervousness and anguish” among the the “large community of boys” who have received deferred action priority due to DACA.
Sada added that he will continue to talk to immigration agents to make sure “these types of cases don’t happen because they have adequate legal protection.”
ICE said in a statement Wednesday that since the start of the DACA program in 2012, around 1,500 recipients have had their deferred action terminated “due to a criminal conviction, gang affiliation, or a criminal conviction related to gang affiliation.”