Beside the Point: What’d You Expect?

I've been thinking this past week about the detainment of undocumented immigrants, and the impending lawlessness that may arise upon the Sept. 1 implementation of Senate Bill 4. This arose after last week's news that ICE had arrested Julio Cesar Mendoza-Cabal­lero, a known member of the Sureños 13 gang, who'd been released from the Travis County Jail weeks prior to his federal detainment after a judge granted him a personal recognizance bond.

Mendoza-Caballero has a criminal history – he stole a firearm in North Texas in 2008 and has since been deported from (and each time quietly re-entered) the country on four different occasions – and was initially booked into the Travis County Jail on a misdemeanor assault charge (causing bodily injury), a violation of city ordinance. To a group like ICE, he's an ideal candidate for deportation.

One need not agree with Sally Her­nan­dez's policy to recognize that it is indeed a policy, one that operates in legal accordance with ICE's current reality, that honoring detainers (while recommended) is voluntary. Travis County Sheriff's Office policy requires that ICE issue a warrant or court order for anyone the agency would like turned over who's not actively in custody for being charged with a violent crime (the definition of which does not include misdemeanor assault). ICE only sent its customary detainer request, which TCSO flatly denied. Men­doza-Caballero was released, then picked up by the agency – at which point the arrest's details moved into the public forum. ICE issued a press release about the arrest that chided TCSO for releasing Mendoza-Caballero without notice. Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted that the state "banned sanctuary cities to stop this." The Travis County GOP issued a breathless statement accusing "Sanctuary Sally" of "needlessly" endangering the public by "outrageously" releasing Mendoza-Cabal­lero into the public.

Word quickly emerged that initial press reports on the Mendoza-Caballero case were not fully accurate. TCSO shot back at ICE's assertions by informing outlets that it did in fact provide notification, to which ICE said "nuh uh" and pointed to an allegedly ignored follow-up email requesting that TCSO reconsider its decision on the basis of Mendoza-Caballero's criminal history. TCSO issued a release expressing "deep regrets" for the oversight. The request was missed "due to a clerical error," wrote PIO Kristen Dark. Then, on Tuesday, Dark told the Chronicle that TCSO never actually received the email. Though ICE has produced a copy, addressed to a TCSO captain, nobody at TCSO has been able to locate the letter within its server, and the two agencies are now working in concert with a computer forensics analyst to figure out when and where the email went missing.

Doing Whatever They Want

The Mendoza-Caballero story was breaking as I ran final edits on Mary Tuma's July 21 feature "Into the Shadows," which used court records to detail the damage already being done by SB 4 – mostly that undocumented immigrants (as well as documented immigrants who happen to be brown) fear being deported or subject to intense interrogations just because of where they're from. In the previous week's issue, we reported on Martin Guer­rero Alvarado, a small business owner and father of five in Dripping Springs who found himself in ICE's custody after Hays County deputies pulled him over for driving with an expired license. (He was eventually released.)

Two days after the Mendoza-Caballero story hit, ICE announced the arrest of 123 "criminal aliens and immigration violators" in Central Texas, a raid the agency said ran July 10-19 and smelled similar to the one ICE ran in February that's since been confirmed was payback for Hernandez's new policy.

Those who support Hernandez's policy should take comfort in knowing that the sheriff has exactly that: a policy, carefully considered – one she and her office stick to and uphold while still providing case-by-case consideration to each detainer request. Mendoza-Caballero was released because the crime he was arrested for did not rise to the level TCSO has required to be kept for a detainment. When prompted, ICE did not return a warrant or court order.

On Monday, The New Yorker ran a story about a series of conversations writer Jona­than Blitzer held with a veteran ICE agent, who spoke in no uncertain terms about the change in culture at the agency since Trump's election, and how agents these days are "doing whatever they want in the field, going after whoever they want."

The agent continued: "We used to look at things through the totality of the circumstances when it came to a removal order – that's out the window. I don't know that there's that appreciation of the entire realm of what we're doing. It's not just the person we're removing. It's their entire family. People say, 'Well, they put themselves in this position because they came illegally.' I totally understand that. But you have to remember that our job is not to judge. The problem is that now there are lots of people who feel free to feel contempt."

One can only imagine the wrath Hernandez would incur should it be discovered that she, too, was operating ad hoc, making decisions on a whim, at times only so that she could retaliate against the agency that has targeted her work so often. Oh, how breathless they would be.

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“Point Austin” will return next week.