- A strawberry delivery driver was arrested by Border Patrol near Gov. Newsom’s Little Tokyo news conference, becoming “collateral damage.”
- Angel Minguela Palacios endured six weeks of harsh detention conditions, watching fellow detainees give up and self-deport.
- Over more than a month in detention, the 48-year-old father prayed he’d get back to his family.
The lights never dimmed and Angel Minguela Palacios couldn’t sleep. He pulled what felt like a large sheet of aluminum foil over his head, but couldn’t adjust to lying on a concrete floor and using his tennis shoes as a pillow.
He could smell unwashed bodies in the cramped room he shared with 40 detainees.
The bathrooms were open-air, providing no privacy. Detainees went days without showering.
Minguela, 48, lay in the chilly downtown Los Angeles ICE facility known as B 18 and thought about his partner of eight years and their three children. In his 10 years in the United States, he had built a secure life he had only dreamed of in Mexico, ensconced in their humble one-bedroom rented home, framed photos of the family at Christmas, his “#1 Dad” figurine. Now it was all falling apart.
In his time servicing ATMs in Ciudad Juárez [back in Mexico], he said he was kidnapped twice and at one point stabbed by people intent on stealing the cash. After his employers cut staff, he lost his job, helping drive his decision to leave.
Minguela came [LA and] soon found a job at the downtown produce market.
He met the woman he calls his
esposa, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, at the second job he worked in the Piñata District.
The morning of Aug. 14, Minguela had been on his last delivery of the day, dropping off strawberries to a tearoom in Little Tokyo. He didn’t know that Gov. Gavin Newsom was holding a news conference there to inveigh against President Trump’s efforts to maintain control of the U.S. House of Representatives through redistricting in Texas. U.S. Border Patrol agents were massing nearby, creating a show of force outside the event. [I don't believe we've received an answer about how immigration enforcement happened to be scheduled to take place next to Newsom's press conference.]
As they moved in, one agent narrowed in on Minguela’s delivery van
...
[after six days in the smelly holding cell, he was transferred to Arizona]
For the first time since his youth, Minguela had time to read books, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “No One Writes to the Colonel.” He read the Bible, taking comfort in Psalm 91, a prayer of trust and protection. He took online courses on CPR, computer skills and how to process his emotions.
But all the distractions, he said, didn’t change the fact that detainees were imprisoned.
Minguela lay in his darkened cell, reflecting on moments when he had arrived home, tired from work and traffic, and scolded his children about minor messes. About times he’d argued with his wife and given her the silent treatment. He made promises to God to be an even better husband and father. He asked that God help his lawyer on his case and to give him a fair judge.
Minguela had his bond hearing Sept 9. He was aided by the fact that he had entered the country lawfully [on a tourist visa], providing the judge the ability to either grant or deny him bond.
Alex Galvez, Minguela’s lawyer, told the judge about his client’s children. He pointed out that Minguela didn’t have a criminal record and was gainfully employed, the primary breadwinner for his family. Galvez submitted 16 letters of recommendation for his client.
When the government lawyer referred to Minguela as a flight risk, Galvez said, the judge appeared skeptical, pointing out that he’d been paying tens of thousands of dollars in taxes for the last 10 years.
A crowd of people waited to greet Minguela as soon as he stepped off a Greyhound bus at Union Station in downtown L.A. on Thursday night.
[HIs lawyer hopes to fight his removal and obtain a work permit.]