Despite the improving unemployment situation in the United States, President Trump may still further restrict legal immigration. One program that the Trump administration is considering restricting is the L‑1 visa program.[1] Multinational businesses use the L‑1 visa to transfer important employees from offices abroad to the United States. Eliminating the L‑1 visa program would harm job and wage growth in the United States by making it much more difficult to expand businesses here.

What is the L‑1 visa?

The L‑1 visa is a nonimmigrant (i.e. temporary) visa for intracompany transfers. It permits multinational companies to bring employees temporarily to the United States if they were employed for at least one year abroad.[2] The program permits petitions by U.S. employers only for managers and executives (L‑1A) and specialized knowledge workers (L‑1B) who may be admitted for up to 7 or 5 years, respectively.[3] The statute defines “specialized knowledge” for L‑1B workers as “special knowledge of the company product and its application in international markets or has an advanced level of knowledge of [its] processes and procedures.”[4]

Spouses and minor children can travel with the employee to the United States,[5] and the spouse may work.[6] Unlike low-skilled seasonal workers and other temporary visitors to the United States, L‑1 workers are not required to prove that they have no intention to live in the United States permanently, allowing employers to simultaneously request permanent residence on their L‑1 workers’ behalf.[7] Employers must file a petition for each worker if filing with the USCIS, but need not file one if they have an approved “blanket” petition allowing L‑1 employees of these pre-approved companies to apply directly at consulates abroad.

Why did Congress create the L‑1 visa?

Congress created the L‑1 visa in 1970.[8] The purpose was to facilitate greater investment in the United States by multinational companies. In 2015, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services stated, “Creation of the program reflected Congress’ concerns with meeting the workforce needs of multinational employers operating in an increasingly global marketplace.”[9]

Specifically, Congress was prompted to action following the immigration reform of 1965, which imposed caps on permanent immigration from the Western Hemisphere. The caps ended the ability for Western Hemispheric companies to quickly transfer employees to the United States using permanent immigrant visas and, the Senate Judiciary Committee found in 1969, “resulted in a serious disruption of the traditional conduct of trade and commerce between Western Hemisphere countries and the United States.”[10]

This created a major issue particularly for Canadian companies. Then-Senator Sam Ervin (D‑NC) received letters from Canadian members of parliament that explained how Canadian firms were having to wait more than a year to transfer their employees to the United States and that they “cannot wait for this type of delay.” U.S. multinationals would expand into Canada and hire some Canadians—which made “the entry of these firms most welcome” in Canada—but when companies wanted to transfer Canadians back to U.S. jobsites, they had “to put up with extensive delays.” They noted that Canada conversely allowed immediate access to U.S. workers in that situation, and they noted that “restrictions imposed upon Canadians to their prejudice [could] see a pressure build up here in Canada for reciprocal treatment” on U.S. workers.[11]

Thus, to prevent retaliation against U.S. companies and workers transferring abroad, to make it easier for U.S. companies to expand abroad, and to encourage multinationals to invest in the United States without fear of being cut off from their key employees, Congress created the L‑1 visa. Senator Ervin said that the proposal “would provide relief for the problems of businesses in both Eastern and Western Hemispheres in transferring key personnel to the United States for temporary tours of duty.”[12] The House report stated that it “would meet the objectives of American industry which has been seriously hampered in transferring personnel.”[13]

How has use of the L‑1 visa program changed?

The L‑1 visa program has no numerical limitations, meaning that multinationals can bring into the United States as many of their foreign employees as they need so long as they meet the requirements.[14] The L‑1 visa expanded quickly in the 1990s before peaking just before the recession at 84,532 in 2007. It has declined since then, and in 2019, 76,988 visas were issued under the L‑1 visa classification.[15] Last year, about 14,000 spouses of L‑1 workers also received authorization to work in the United States.[16] Through half of FY 2020, there were 35,228 L‑1 visas issued.

What are the most common countries of origin for L‑1 workers?

Multinationals transferred personnel from about 160 countries in FY 2019.[17] By far the most common country of citizenship for L‑1 workers is India with 18,354 visas issued in 2019. The United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, and China round out the top five with between 5,000 and 6,000 each. Other major trading partners—Japan, Germany, and France—also rank in the top 10. The sudden departure in upward trend in 2008 is entirely explained by decreasing approvals for employees from India.

What companies employ L‑1 workers?

Table 1 shows the number of approved L‑1 petitions by USCIS by company by fiscal year from 2015 to 2018. Companies—Tata, Cognizant, Deloitte, Amazon, Infosys, and IBM—made the most requests in 2018. Deloitte is the only non-tech company among the leading L‑1 employers.

What is the L‑1 share of U.S. multinational employment?

The government does not maintain information regarding the stock or population of L‑1 visa holders in the United States at any one time. L‑1 visa holders can receive status from 5 to 7 years. They may enter or reenter the country dozens of times per year during the course of project involving teams in multiple countries. Some may adjust to other statuses in the United States or leave the country. That said, Figure 3 below uses the prior 5 years of visa issuances to give a rough high-end estimate of 387,397 for the number of L‑1 workers that could have been employed in the United States in 2019. [19] This is about 1 percent of the 35.4 million U.S. employees of U.S.- and foreign-based multinationals.[20] While the L‑1 share rose from 1997 to 2008, it has since declined.

Multinationals are employing vastly more U.S. workers than L‑1 workers. More importantly, nearly one in four jobs are with a multinational company.[21] Congress should make sure not to undermine these jobs by threatening the L‑1 program.

Is the L‑1 visa program necessary?

The L‑1 visa is a critical component of multinational employment and investment growth. According to the Congressional Research Service, the L‑1 “is considered a visa category essential to retaining and expanding international businesses in the United States.”[22] In a letter to President Trump in May 2020, the Chamber of Commerce and hundreds of businesses wrote that restricting the L‑1 visa was a “significant concern” because it “plays a direct role in supporting job creation and job retention in the United States, as well as expanding U.S. advanced manufacturing, continuing U.S.-centered research and development, increasing exports from the U.S., and encouraging foreign direct investment into the U.S.”[23]

In 2006, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) found that “a number of business executives playing leading roles in U.S. companies were initially transferred to the United States on temporary worker visas.”[24] The National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) has found that “75 of the 91 privately held, billion-dollar companies, or 82%, had at least one immigrant helping the company grow and innovate by filling a key management or product development position.”[25]

For example, Lior Div cofounded Cybereason, a cybersecurity firm, in Israel, but he grew his operation into the United States in 2014 by coming to the United States on an L‑1 visa. He said, “You have to be close to the market you are selling to and for us the main market is the United States.”[26] He told NFAP’s Stuart Anderson that while his firm is now in many countries, “the majority of the team is in the United States.”[27] His expertise allowed the business to create jobs in the United States that otherwise wouldn’t exist.

In testimony to Congress in 2003, Daryl Buffenstein of the Global Personnel Alliance provided several examples of typical uses of the L‑1 visa. He described, for example, a California-based software company who brought in an L‑1 from Europe to transfer new product technology so that software developers could then develop products using its technology. He notes, “Without this transfer, the development would be taking place in Europe and the jobs would go there instead.”[28] After noting how vigorously states were competing for foreign direct investment (FDI), Buffenstein said:

Successful investments necessarily involve people. Without the select cadre of key executives, managers, and specialists who are involved in these transfers, there would be, quite simply, no investments and therefore no jobs. And many, if not most, of these people are here on L‑1 visas. They are very few in number relative to the jobs they create.[29]

Recent academic research by the Wharton School confirms that following restrictions on high skilled immigration, “firms were more likely to open new foreign affiliates abroad in response, and employment increased at existing foreign affiliates.”[30] In other words, they send jobs abroad when they can‘t bring their foreign workers here. Worse, the research notes, “if skilled foreign-born workers are at a US firm’s foreign affiliate instead of in the US, the innovative spillovers that they generate will go to another country instead.”

According to the International Trade Administration, “12 million people (8.5 percent of the labor force) have jobs in the U.S. due to either direct employment at foreign firms (6.1 million), indirect and induced employment from foreign firms (2.4 million), or indirect and induced employment from productivity spillovers (3.5 million).”[31] It is important that Congress not undermine these jobs and future job growth by denying foreign businesses the ability to bring their existing employees into the country to guide and direct their operations.

Do L‑1s displace U.S. workers?

L‑1 visa holders are existing employees of U.S. multinationals, not new hires that could take a position within an organization. They come to the United States to perform duties that they were otherwise be performing abroad. It would be pointless to require companies to search for U.S. workers with specialized expertise in the company’s processes and procedures because such a search would yield no results. It would only delay important projects and impose costs on U.S. employers and consumers.

Opponents of the L‑1 visa program cite a few instances over several decades in which L‑1 workers were apparently hired and loaned to other companies to perform jobs that U.S. workers were doing in the tech industry. In 2006, the DHS OIG first investigated these claims and determined, “While many of the claims that appear in the media about L‑1 workers displacing American workers and testimony may have merit, they do not seem to represent a significant national trend.”[32] The OIG concluded that “the demand for computer and IT related positions also seems to be strong” with wage and job growth much better than the average. It added, “The ebb and flow of L‑1B workers correlates closely with the general health of the U.S. high tech industry.”

Even if some instances of U.S. worker displacement may have occurred, Congress should not adopt policies that attempt to stop all job losses. Job turnover occurs across the entire economy on the level of more than 40 million per year.[33] Stopping all such job adjustments in the economy would stifle innovation and drive businesses away from the United States because it would not allow them to stop inefficient processes. Far from displacing U.S. workers on net, allowing multinationals to bring employees into the United States from abroad prevents them from moving their entire operations abroad. This keeps America the leader in the world for foreign direct investment that creates jobs here.[34] Unfortunately, and perhaps unsurprisingly given his trade and immigration policies, the amount of FDI has fallen dramatically under President Trump.[35]

Do businesses use L‑1s to avoid H‑1B rules?

Because the L‑1 visa is for existing employees of companies with operations abroad, the law imposes no numerical limit unlike the H‑1B program, which is for new hires. It also allows companies to continue to pay their workers the same that they would have been paid in their home countries (so long as it accords with other state and federal laws), so as not to disincentivize them from locating their operations in the United States. If the L‑1 program did have a numerical limit, it would essentially cap the amount of foreign investment and business growth in the United States, and it would lead more businesses to offshore.

Nonetheless, these differences between the L‑1 and the H‑1B have led some critics to argue that companies simply use the L‑1 to avoid having to deal with H‑1B bureaucracy. While this would be an understandable reaction to the H‑1B’s incredibly bureaucratic procedures, the DHS OIG investigated these claims and found “only 1,975 applicants applied for both the L‑1 and H‑1B,” and that since some L‑1s may also qualify as H‑1Bs, this “does not indicate that either of the petitioners, or the beneficiary, is trying to take advantage of the system.”[36]

In 2013, the DHS OIG reiterated its skepticism of this theory, finding “no conclusive evidence that the L‑1 visa program is being used to avoid H‑1B restrictions.”[37] In fact, it noted that “Since FY 2008, the ratio of H‑1B to L‑1B submissions has actually increased.” This trend has only continued since then (Figure 4). From 2012 to 2019, the ratio of H‑1B to L‑1B petitions has nearly doubled, despite the fact that the H‑1B caps were continuously being reached within days. Obviously businesses do not see the L‑1B as a viable alternative to the H‑1B.

The limited evidence available doesn’t support the claim that L‑1s are generally lower paid than H‑1Bs. While not much wage data is available on L‑1s because employers don’t need to file wage information to bring in existing employees from abroad, the 6,934 L‑1 visa holders for whom employers requested permanent residence in 2019 received an average wage offer of $118,014, roughly triple the median wage in the United States that year.[38] It was also higher than the H‑1B average wage offer that year.[39]

Are there problems with the L‑1 visa?

The biggest problem facing the L‑1 visa right now is that the denial rate for L‑1 petitions has escalated dramatically, decreasing the ability of businesses to operate in the United States. Figure 5 shows how the denial rate has increased from 15 percent in 2016 to 28 percent in 2019. Another 28 percent received a request for evidence (RFE), which is the equivalent of an initial denial that the business can overcome by presenting additional information to the agency. The majority of all L‑1 petitions are now subject to a denial or an RFE request, which delay or prevent the transfer of important personnel to the United States, undermining economically important projects.

Most of the denials are for L‑1B petitions for workers with specialized knowledge, and before 2008, the L‑1B denial rate was below 10 percent, meaning the L‑1 denial rates have been increasing dramatically for more than a decade.[40] This increase led the Chamber of Commerce and dozens of businesses to write to President Obama in 2012, saying that denials “do nothing except disrupt carefully-laid business plans and create significant costs to the company and the American economy.” Yet from 2016 to 2019, the share of L‑1B denials increased again from 25 percent to 34 percent.[41]

It’s impossible to maintain a denial rate at this level without something seriously wrong with USCIS’s adjudication process. If USCIS consistently rejected certain applicants, those applicants that don’t meet adjudicators’ standards simply would not apply (even if they should be approved under the correct interpretation of the law) because it makes no sense to apply knowing that a rejection awaits. The fact that the denial rates remain this high is a sign that adjudicators’ denials are not at all consistent, so employers simply have no way of knowing what petitions are approvable. What is relevant is not the contents of the application, but who adjudicates it, making decisions seem arbitrary.

Indeed, the DHS OIG found in 2013 that L‑1 “adjudicators reach different decisions despite similar fact patterns.”[42] The denials are mainly driven by some adjudicators narrow view of L‑1B “specialized knowledge,” which despite congressional efforts to broaden it is vague enough to allow more restrictive adjudicators to issue denials. As USCIS has stated in official policy memoranda, Congress clearly intended to adopt an expansive view of this phrase in the Immigration Act of 1990, but many agency employees fail to follow its intent.[43]

Conclusion

Multinational companies play an exceptionally important role in the United States. U.S. parent companies account for nearly a quarter of all private sector output, nearly half of all exports, and nearly three quarters of all private research and development.[44] More than 30 million American workers’ jobs depend on multinationals. The U.S. government should not further upend investment and job growth by these companies in the United States during the economic recovery. The unemployment rate in computer occupations where many L‑1s are employed did not increase at all during the downturn,[45] and the United States will need more L‑1 workers as the economy expands.

As China prepares to take over Hong Kong⁠—effectively ending the era of “one country, two systems”⁠—other countries are struggling with how to respond.

One of the best responses has come from Great Britain. In a column for The Times, Prime Minister Boris Johnson proposed a path to British citizenship for nearly 3 million Hong Kong residents. Johnson writes:

Many people in Hong Kong fear that their way of life — which China pledged to uphold — is under threat. If China proceeds to justify their fears, then Britain could not in good conscience shrug our shoulders and walk away; instead we will honor our obligations and provide an alternative.

The Washington Post reports that, “China’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that Britain has no jurisdiction over Hong Kong. Britain must ‘step back from the brink’ and ‘stop interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs and China’s internal affairs.’”

While Boris Johnson’s plan is light on details, it provides a template for other countries’ responses to China’s increasingly authoritarian takeover of Hong Kong. The threat of losing millions of talented citizens could motivate the Chinese government to ease its grip. Other countries should follow Great Britain’s lead and provide a safe haven for individuals whose lives and liberties are under threat by the Chinese Communist Party.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) routinely requests that local law enforcement detain U.S. citizens to allow it to pick them up. ICE’s records list 3,158 U.S. citizens as targets of ICE detainers from October 2002 to September 2019. Another 1.6 percent of actual ICE arrests through Secure Communities—the targeting system that ICE uses to issue detainers—were U.S. citizens from October 2008 to April 2011—or 3,627 citizens. Immigration courts—again with incomplete records—show 2,549 removal proceedings terminated in the favor of U.S. citizens from 2002 to June 9, 2017.

These totals undercount the number of U.S. citizen targets because ICE and the courts fail to accurately update citizenship records after someone proves their citizenship status. My research on detainers in Travis County, Texas showed that ICE almost certainly targeted at least 228 U.S. citizens before canceling or declining to execute those detainers from October 2005 to August 2017—almost 1 percent of all detainers. Nationwide, that would equal roughly 19,873. Research on detainers in Miami-Dade County in Florida by the ACLU implies a similar finding.

The statistical evidence overwhelmingly indicates that the U.S. government is regularly issuing immigration detainers for U.S. citizens. But unfortunately, little qualitative research is available on the circumstances behind these erroneous detainers. This analysis is an effort to help fill that gap providing the details surrounding 155 immigration detainers for U.S. citizens from 1999 to 2018 identified through court documents, media reports, and agency statements.

Each one of these cases details an event in which someone’s U.S. citizenship was denied by the U.S. government, often with devastating consequences for them. The legal consequences include wrongful arrest, detention, incarceration, prosecution, loss of work authorization, and deportation. The social and economic consequences include loss of wages, jobs, bankruptcy, family separation, homelessness, and despair. It is hoped that by providing the stories and details around these detainers, policymakers and ICE can better understand the problems that wrongful detainers cause and how to correct them.

Statistics on ICE Detainers for 155 Publicly Identified U.S. Citizens

Figure 1 displays the estimated dates of the detainers contained in this collection. Again, it is important to note that this is not a random sample. It takes time for these events to reach public attention, and older cases are probably more difficult to find today.

Figure 2 displays the share of detainers for publicly identified U.S. citizens by the manner in which they received U.S. citizenship. A person may receive U.S. citizenship through birth in the United States, taking the oath of naturalization, acquisition, or derivation. Acquired citizens receive citizenship automatically at birth when born abroad to U.S. citizens who have previously resided in the United States. Derived citizens receive citizenship automatically when their parents naturalize while they are still minor children in the care of their parents. Naturalized citizens accounted for 12 percent, U.S‑born 31 percent, derived 46 percent, and acquired 9 percent of the publicly identifiable cases. Another 3 percent did not have a citizenship type reported.

The overrepresentation of acquired and derived citizens probably only partially reflects the frequency with which detainers may be issued to them. It may also reflect the fact that only the more complex cases actually reach the courts for resolution. U.S. citizens by birth can more easily prove their citizenship. Nonetheless, with 49 cases, the United States was still the most common birth country of detainers for publicly identified U.S. citizens (Table 1 below provides this information). Mexico was second with 43. Ethiopia and Jamaica each had 4. Interestingly, in 8—or 5 percent—of cases, the citizen was also a veteran of the U.S. armed services.

Figure 3 shows the distribution of detainers for publicly identified U.S. citizens by state. With 69 cases, California alone accounted for almost half the total. This likely only partially reflects the state’s large number of immigrant families and intensity of ICE enforcement there. It may also reflect the intensity of media attention in California or availability of counsel to fight detainers affectively. Texas was second with 14 cases. Altogether, 36 states had at least one erroneous detainer publicly reported in the courts or media.

Figure 4 shows the number of days that a publicly identified U.S. citizen was subject to a detainer. In 31 cases—20 percent of the total—the detainer remained in place (i.e. not rescinded or canceled) for a year or more. This includes the time after they were executed. More than half of the detainers remained in place for a month or more. It is likely, however, that this distribution is skewed to the far end relative to the actual distribution of all detainers for U.S. citizens by virtue of the type of cases that reach the courts and media. Nonetheless, these cases highlight the extreme difficulty than many Americans may face from ICE detainers.

While not all of these time periods align with periods in which the citizen was actually in ICE custody or detained by local authorities solely based on the detainer, there is a great deal of overlap. In 88—93 percent—of the 95 cases in which there were details regarding the effect of the detainer on the length of someone’s detention, the citizen was detained longer than they would otherwise have been as a result of the detainer. In a third of cases, the additional detention lasted longer than three months. Of course, ICE detention can also be cut short because the citizen was deported, which was the outcome 9 times—6 percent of the publicly identified cases. In 8 more cases, the citizen was ordered removed by an immigration judge, but was saved through appeals. In another 6 cases, the detainer followed a prior removal (or coerced “voluntary departure”).

Figure 5 shows the share of detainers for publicly identified U.S. citizens with various factors identifiable in each case. More than one factor may be present in a case, and the fact that public records don’t demonstrate a certain factor doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t present. In nearly three quarters of the publicly identified cases, some kind of database or records error was present. Most often these errors originated from the failure of the government to record someone’s change of citizenship status or the loss of that record, but they also include many cases of mistaken identity. At least 15 percent of all cases resulted from mistaken identity.

The causes of mistaken identities are not always clear, but can occur when ICE identifies someone’s name from their fingerprints and then associates that name with someone else. ICE said it targeted Alejandro Torres with a detainer in 2015 because he “has a very similar name and a [date of birth]” to an illegal immigrant “and were mixed up.” In 2011, ICE made a similar comment about Richard Ortega, stating it had confused him with someone else, but issued the detainer “just in case.” Information from six cases—Levon Iskandara, Angelica Devila, Eva, Rene Saldivar, Mohammed Adil Adem, and Rennison Castillo—indicates that the wrong information was entered into the database.

At least 30 percent of detainers for publicly identified U.S. citizens were previously adjudicated by the federal government to be citizens at some point—either during naturalization proceedings, removal proceedings, following an earlier incident with immigration enforcement, or through the issuance of a U.S. passport. Indeed, a U.S. passport was the most common form by which a U.S. citizen had a citizenship claim verified by the federal government prior to a detainer being issued. ICE’s databases were often not linked to these determinations or updated to reflect them, but in some cases, ICE simply ignored another agency’s finding.

In 2005, for example, ICE told German Cueto that “a United States passport … does not make you a United States citizen.” ICE deported Robert Dominguez, but the State Department issued him a U.S. passport to return. ICE issued a detainer for him and had his passport cancelled, even though State Department officials believed he was a U.S. citizen. ICE commonly appealed citizenship findings by immigration judges (George Ibarra, Michael Romero Jimenez, Hector Veloz, Shawn Hines, Kelechi Gerald Nwozuzu, and Wilsonis Ayala Villanueva). In Wilsonis’s case, ICE lost three times in immigration court, won appeals three times, and only gave up the case when U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services intervened and issued him a certificate of citizenship.

Significantly, a particularly common cause of a wrongful detainer appears to be prior interactions with immigration enforcement agents. In at least 35—or 23 percent—of the publicly identified U.S. citizen detainer cases, the U.S. citizen had a prior incident with immigration enforcement. These prior encounters with immigration enforcement likely triggered the subsequent erroneous detainer. This includes 22 cases where the person had a prior immigration detainer, meaning that they appear multiple times on this list. Two citizens were subject to three separate detainers. Ada Morales was subject to a second detainer, despite ICE rescinding an earlier detainer.

In 15 percent of cases, the citizen didn’t immediately assert a U.S. citizenship claim in response to the detainer. Of course, this doesn’t mean that ICE should have issued the detainer, but indicates that some portion of U.S. citizens don’t recognize their status, which should make ICE more cautious about issuing based on someone’s statement’s alone. In 76 percent of those cases, this occurred among derivative and acquired U.S. citizens did not understand the complex law surrounding automatic citizenship. ICE agents had them admit their removability rather than check the status of their parents or inquire into the details of their cases. Marta Alicia Cerda Cervantes case—where ICE issued a detainer and then retracted it without having her ever make a citizenship claim—proves that it is possible for ICE to verify citizenship without having a person assert it.

In at least four of the six U.S.-born citizen cases where a citizen failed to assert their citizenship, there were mental disabilities that provoked the false statement. Four other cases involved U.S. citizens being talked out of their citizenship claim by ICE agents. In 8 percent of all cases, the U.S. citizen targeted had severe mental disabilities or illnesses. Mark Lyttle and Pedro Guzman were barely literate and ICE agents talked them into voluntarily deporting themselves to Mexico where they lived homeless and destitute.

ICE disputed the facts asserted by the U.S. citizen after it verified their identity and the U.S. citizen made their citizenship claim in 23 percent of the publicly identified cases. These cases hinged on specific pieces of evidence necessary to show citizenship, such as birth certificate or the length of residence of U.S. citizen parent. Once a person admits that they were born abroad, ICE places the burden of proof to prove their U.S. citizenship on them, even in cases where it has no reason not to believe them. ICE also contested the legal basis of the citizenship claim in 6 percent of cases. These involved issues surrounding the requirements of derivative citizenship.

Law enforcement agent intentional misconduct played a significant role in at least 12 percent of the cases. This included issuing detainers despite ICE databases recording U.S. citizenship (Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, Ernesto Galarza, Andres Robles Gonzalez), ignoring evidence of U.S. citizenship produced after a detainer (Peter Sean Brown, Guadalupe Plascencia, Pedro Guzman), talking U.S. citizens out of making their claims to get out of prisons (Robert Carlos Dominguez, George Ibarra, Mark Lyttle), lying about the presence of a formal detainer (Ramon Mendoza), writing incorrect information (Eva), ignoring obvious indications of mental illness or disability (Mark Lyttle, Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, Peter Sean Brown, Thomas Warziniack, Ann, Rene Saldivar, and Pedro Guzman).

In at least 15 cases, the U.S. citizens won a financial settlement either from ICE or the locality that honored the detainer following a lawsuit. The issue of wrongful detainers and the threat of lawsuits has forced several jurisdictions to change detainer policies. This directly includes Grand Rapids in Michigan, Chicago, Sarpy County in Nebraska, and Lehigh and Alleghany Counties in Pennsylvania, but also numerous other cities and counties in reaction to lawsuits by U.S. citizens. But in many other cases, U.S. citizens were denied settlements because qualified immunity protected the agents, the burden of proof for citizenship is on a foreign-born person, they couldn’t meet filing deadlines due to their incarcerations, the government has no duty to investigate citizenship status of deportees, or the courts didn’t consider the violations severe enough.

These detainers resulted in severe consequences for many of the citizens targeted by them. Nearly all resulted in arrests and incarcerations. Ricardo Garza’s monthlong detention in 2015 cost him ownership of his car and nearly bankrupted him. Mark Lyttle was deported to Mexico and ended up being deported to both Nicaragua and Guatemala. He lived homeless and destitute in these countries for several months. Pedro Guzman lived on garbage in Mexico following his deportation. Andres Robles Gonzalez was deported following detainer when his attorney mistakenly admitted his illegal status at an immigration court hearing over his objections. He suffered “nearly three torturous years hiding from grisly cartel violence and witnessing horrific atrocities in Mexico.”

While ICE claims that it has improved its policies over the years, the steady stream of cases in similar circumstances undermines this assertion. Indeed, a September 2019 district court decision found that ICE’s databases include information that is “often erroneous.” A 2012 DHS report found that its primary database had wrong class of admission information for 12 percent of all the people in it. In internal emails discovered in the 2019 case, ICE wrote that U.S. citizens wrongly being targeted with detainers based solely on faulty databases “occur frequently.” Yet ICE is fighting to continue the practice at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this month. Hopefully, this list will help inform the court’s decision.

The List of 155 ICE Detainers for U.S. Citizens From 1999 to 2018

1. Jilmar Ramos-Gomez was born in Michigan and served in the U.S. Marines. He suffers from PTSD and is mentally unstable. On November 21, 2018, a law enforcement officer in Michigan’s Kent County Sheriff’s Department in Grand Rapids reached out to ICE to inquire about Jilmar’s status following an arrest for setting a small fire in a stairwell. During his disciplinary hearing, more than 80 emails to ICE emerged showing this officer corresponding with ICE about the status regarding ethnic minorities. The jail itself recorded Jilmar’s nationality as USA. On November 23, 2018, ICE ran database checks and found Jimar’s records showing his citizenship. After interviewing Jilmar, he issued a detainer anyway that same day. The sheriff held him despite having his military ID, Marine Corps identification tags, U.S. passports, and Real ID driver’s license (which only legal residents and U.S. citizens may obtain) and transferred him to ICE custody at Calhoun County detention center on December 14, 2018. ICE released him on December 17, 2018 after an immigration attorney got involved. Grand Rapids City Commission paid a settlement of $190,000 to Ramos-Gomez for detaining him. Grand Rapids changed its detainer policies following the incident.
2. Jaime Martinez-Benitez was born abroad and derived U.S. citizenship through a parent’s naturalization. On July 23, 2018, ICE issued a detainer for Jaime while he was in U.S. Department of Justice custody in Welch, West Virginia. By September 24, 2018, ICE rescinded the detainer.
3. Peter Sean Brown was born in Pennsylvania. In 1998, the Immigration and Naturalization Service detained Peter in New Jersey on suspicion of being in the country illegally only to release him. ICE issued a detainer for Brown on April 5, 2018 after the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office arrested him for a probation violation. He presented a driver’s license for which only U.S. citizens and legal residents are eligible. He filed a complaint with the sheriff’s on April 8. The sheriff’s office described the 5‑foot‑7 Brown as 7‑feet tall and listed him under the wrong birthday. Despite a judge ordering his release on April 26 following a bail hearing, he was detained by the sheriff’s office under the detainer until April 26 until his transfer to Krome Detention Center in Miami. ICE prepared to deport him—wrongly believing him to be another Peter Brown from Jamaica—but a friend finally brought his U.S. birth certificate, and he was released on April 27, 2018.
4. George Ibarra was born in Mexico, acquired his U.S. citizenship by virtue of his U.S. citizen mother and served in the Marines. He grew up in the United States and was awarded “at least a dozen medals and campaign badges” for his service, and he suffers from nerve damage and PTSD. In 1999, Ibarra claimed his citizenship, but did not understand the law well enough to defend himself. After nine months in immigration detention, he allowed INS to deport him. He then reentered the country with his military ID and driver’s license. In June 2003, he was arrested for illegal reentry, and on February 4, 2004, ICE issued a detainer and picked him up from Justice Department custody. Again, he failed to contest his deportation to avoid further detention, but he returned again. He was again arrested. On February 22, 2011, an immigration judge found that he was a U.S. citizen. ICE kept him in solitary confinement in Arizona until May 3, 2011 when he was released. ICE appealed the decision on the grounds that his documents were faked. Following a criminal conviction in Arizona, about August 18, 2017, ICE issued another detainer for his arrest.
5. Nicholas Taylor-Jones was born in Illinois. On December 6, 2008, Pontiac police in Illinois arrested Taylor-Jones, and despite telling an ICE official in the jail that he was born in the United States, ICE issued a detainer on October 13, 2009. While incarcerated in state custody, Taylor-Jones attempted to have the detainer lifted and presented a copy of his birth certificate to ICE officials who refused to lift the detainer. He filed a motion to join a class action lawsuit challenging the legality of detainers and seeking damages, and ICE lifted the detainer request.
6. Arcane Tossou was born in Texas. On June 20, 2017, ICE issued a detainer for Arcane after his arrest by the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. During booking, Arcane stated that he was born in Texas, and Travis County refused to honor the detainer. A judge found him mentally incompetent to stand trial, and he was released to obtain treatment at an Austin hospital.
7. Guadalupe Plascencia was born in Mexico and naturalized to become a U.S. citizen. On March 29, 2017, San Bernardino police picked her up for alleged failure to appear as a witness, and ICE issued a detainer the following day, arresting her and bringing her into their custody on March 30 in West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, despite presenting her driver’s license and gun registration. ICE detained her based on her failure to appear in USCIS’s database. Agents accused her of identity theft. She told the police and ICE that she was a U.S. citizen, and ICE then released her the same day. She won $55,000 in a suit.
8. Fernando Talamente Magana was born in California. ICE issued a detainer for Fernando following his arrest Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, and on April 3, 2013, ICE lifted the detainer after it located Fernando’s birth certificate.
9. Garland Creedle was born in Honduras and acquired his U.S. citizenship through his father. In 2015, Garland was arrested by ICE and placed in removal proceedings. On April 28, 2015, DHS moved to terminate the proceedings on the grounds that Garland is a U.S. citizen. On March 12, 2017, Miami-Dade County arrested Creedle following an incident for which he was never charged. The following day, ICE issued a detainer request, and despite the fact that he told the county that he was a U.S. citizen, the county held him based on that request alone until March 14, 2017 at which time ICE interviewed him and withdrew the detainer. He filed a lawsuit. In 2018, a district court ruled that Miami-Dade County could be held liable for the detention.
10. Rony Chavez Aguilar was born in Guatemala and derived United States citizenship through his mother’s naturalization in 2001. In January 2017, ICE issued a detainer to a Kentucky law enforcement agency requesting that it detain Chavez after his release date. It did so for two days, and ICE assumed custody. He asserted his citizenship from the beginning, but the agency detained him for 18 days without a hearing before he sued, and it released him. He filed a lawsuit on March 27, 2017. In May 2018, he died before his lawsuit was dismissed.
11. Richard Renteria was born in the United States. On August 22, 2016, ICE issued a detainer for Richard following his arrest by the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. During his booking in Travis County, Richard who speaks fluent English told the officers that he was born in Texas. He listed his Social Security Number in documents for pretrial services, but ICE issued the detainer anyway.
12. Levy Jaen was born in Panama and acquired his U.S. citizenship through his birth to U.S. citizen father. In 2014, New York City Police arrested him on a drug charge, and on April 17, 2015, while serving his sentence, ICE issued a detainer and a notice to appear in immigration court. In May 2016, ICE assumed custody of him, and an immigration judge ordered him removed on December 8, 2016. He appealed, and ICE detained him until April 2018. His biological father was not the father his noncitizen mother was married to, but the Second Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the statute doesn’t limit automatic citizenship to biological parents.
13. Jacinta Gonzalez was born in Mexico and naturalized to become a U.S. citizen. On March 19, 2016, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office arrested her for blocking the road to a Trump rally. They reported her to ICE, and ICE issued a detainer request that falsely stated that she was already in removal proceedings. She told them about her citizenship. A judge ordered the release of her and other protesters, but the sheriff’s office held her overnight. ICE agents then interviewed her. They arrested her and transferred her to immigration detention. ICE released her that day. She filed a lawsuit challenging the practice of honoring detainers.
14. N.M. AKA “Teresa Sanchez” was born in California. On January 15, 2016, ICE issued a detainer for N.M. after her arrest by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office in California. Federal databases associated her fingerprints with the arrest of a woman named Teresa Sanchez. On January 21, 2016, ICE lifted the detainer after it found her birth record and U.S. passport application.
15. Jairy Flores was born in the Dominican Republic and derived U.S. citizenship through the naturalization of his mother in 1999 when he was 15. On January 13, 2016, five days after his arrest by Vegas Metro Police Department in Clark County, Nevada, ICE issued a detainer. ICE databases had no record of his naturalization and listed him as a legal permanent resident because his mother’s naturalization automatically conferred U.S. citizenship on him. On January 19, 2016, ICE confirmed his U.S. citizenship and lifted the request.
16. Mario Ruiz-Grimaldo was born in the United States. On January 7, 2000, Border Patrol arrested Mario as an illegal immigrant who entered without inspection, and he accepted voluntary return the same day. He reentered the country, and on February 22, 2013, ICE issued a detainer for Mario after his arrest in Houston and issued a notice to appear in immigration court for removal proceedings. ICE never rescinded the detainer and notice to appear. On January 3, 2016, ICE issued another detainer for Mario after his arrest by the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office. On January 13, 2016, ICE lifted the detainer after it located his U.S. birth certificate and found entry records in CBP’s Automated Targeting System stating that he was a U.S. citizen.
17. Oscar Hernandez was born in Texas. Oscar was raised by his aunt in Mexico from the age of 1. His aunt registered his birth in Mexico in order to obtain Mexican documents for him. On April 19, 2004, Oscar accepted voluntary return to Mexico because he did not understand that he was U.S. citizen, and the government never checked. In 2006, he discovered that he was a U.S. citizen. On July 25, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Oscar following his arrest by the Boone County Sheriff’s Department in Missouri. ICE took him into custody at the Kansas ICE/ERO office, which released him after he showed him his U.S. birth certificate, but it never indicated the reason for the release or closed the case against him. On January 1, 2016, ICE issued a detainer for Oscar after his arrest in Boone County, Missouri. An ICE agent interviewed him on January 13, 2016, and he asserted his U.S. citizenship. ICE lifted the detainer after it verified his birth with Texas Vital Statistics.
18. Randy Pena was born in Harris County, Texas. On December 18, 2015, ICE issued a detainer to Harris County Police Department after Pena’s arrest for a traffic offense. His fingerprints were associated with a noncitizen who entered without inspection. ICE determined his birthplace after a review of Texas Vital Statistics found his birth certificate. On December 22, 2015, ICE lifted the detainer.
19. Francisco Villa was born in California. On December 2, 2015, ICE issued a detainer to Ventura County Sheriff’s Office after Francisco’s drug arrest. A database associated his fingerprints with the records of an illegal immigrant. ICE wrote, “it appears match was base on similar names and alias.” The same day, ICE lifted the detainer after it located his birth certificate in California’s birth index.
20. Antonio Almanza Garcia was born abroad and derived U.S. citizenship from his parents’ naturalization prior to his 18^th birthday. On July 15, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Antonio after his arrest by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office believing he was a legal permanent resident. On November 22, 2015, ICE issued another detainer for Antonio to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. On November 24, 2015, it lifted the detainers after finding his parents’ naturalizations.
21. Angel Araujo was born in California. On November 4, 2015, ICE issued a detainer to Riverside County Sheriff’s Office after Angel was arrested. DHS database associated his fingerprints with someone returned in June 2005. On November 25, 2015, ICE lifted the detainer after finding his California birth record and his U.S. passport number.
22. Enrique Rangel Alonso was born in the United States. On November 4, 2015, federal databases associated his fingerprints with an individual who entered without inspection from Mexico in 2000, and ICE issued a detainer for Enrique to the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office in Texas after his drug possession arrest. On November 17, 2015, Enrique’s wife provided his U.S. birth certificate, and ICE lifted the detainer.
23. Erick Aldana was born in California. On October 31, 2015, ICE issued a detainer to an unknown law enforcement entity. At the time of the detainer, ICE noted that he had a “possible USC claim.” The ICE agent called his parents—both of whom were undocumented but who came to the facility and provided a California birth certificate anyway. The agent asserted that “previous queries for subject did not reveal any CA birth record.” ICE lifted the hold that evening after finding the birth record.
24. Ricardo Garza was born in Mexico and naturalized to become a U.S. citizen. On October 30, 2015, Grande Prairie police arrested him. On November 1, ICE issued a detainer request. Although Garza told them that he was a U.S. citizen, police transferred him to Dallas County Jail and spent 36 days there as ICE investigated and eventually removed the detainer on December 7, 2015. He fell behind on his bills and lost his car.
25. Ricardo Mauricio Garza-Castillo was born in Mexico and derived U.S. citizenship through the naturalization of his mother’s naturalization in 1996. On April 15, 1999, after a criminal conviction by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, INS issued a detainer and placed Ricardo in removal proceedings. On May 17, 1999, the Immigration Judge terminated those proceedings after Ricardo proved his U.S. citizenship, but the IJ failed to specify the reason for the termination. On October 19, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Ricardo to Grand Prairie City Jail in Texas after his arrest by the Grand Prairie City Police Department. On December 15, 2015, ICE lifted the detainer after discovering the IJ’s decision.
26. Vanna Say was born in Thailand and derived U.S. citizenship from his father’s naturalization. On December 12, 2012, the Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Office in Sierra Blanca, Texas arrested Say for a marijuana offense. ICE issued a detainer, and on December 19, 2012, ICE arrested Say and turned him over to another agency for a criminal prosecution. On August 25, 2014, ICE issued a detainer for Vanna to Fresno County Sheriff’s Office in California after his arrest. It appears that this detainer was not rescinded, and on October 19, 2015, ICE issued another detainer for Vanna to the Santa Rita Jail in California following a marijuana arrest by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. On January 25, 2016, ICE lifted the detainer after discovering his father’s naturalization record. He had already been released.
27. Fernando Buelna was born in California. On October 12, 2015, after a biometric database check, ICE issued a detainer to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office after Fernando was arrested. The database associated his fingerprints with an illegal immigrant because they were both given the same FBI identification number. On November 16, 2015, ICE lifted the detainer after it found his birth certificate in California birth index and his U.S. passport number.
28. Lorena Chairez-Martinez was born in Mexico and derived U.S. citizenship from her father’s naturalization. On October 9, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Lorena after her arrest by the Baldwin Park Police Department in California after databases indicated that she was a legal permanent resident. On December 7, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer after finding her father’s naturalization record.
29. Victor Hurtado was born in California. On September 5, 2014, ICE issued a detainer for Victor after his arrest by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. ICE stated that he had entered without inspection after a fingerprint check of federal databases due to an encounter with Border Patrol in 1998 where an agent listed him as a “cosmuggler”. This detainer was apparently never rescinded or executed. On October 4, 2015, ICE issued another detainer for Victor after his arrest by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. On November 29, 2015, ICE identified Victor as a U.S. citizen born in California with records in California’s birth index.
30. Erick Favian Cruz Godinez was born in Mexico and derived U.S. citizenship from his father’s naturalization. On July 28, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Erick after his arrest by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office in California after databases listed his status as a legal permanent resident. This detainer was apparently never executed. On October 2, 2015, ICE issued another detainer for Erick to the Fullerton Police Department in California. On November 11, 2015, ICE took Erick into custody in the James A. Musick ICE Detention Facility in Irvine, California. On November 16, it released him after locating—with help from Erick’s attorney—his father’s naturalization record.
31. Edward Oktla Sumary is a U.S. citizen. He came to the United States with aunt on a temporary visa in 2001 and remained. It is likely that he acquired U.S. citizenship from a U.S. citizen parent at birth, but ICE documents are unclear. On October 25, 2006, San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department in the West Valley Detention Center acting under a 287(g) agreement placed Edward in removal proceedings. The officer stated that Edward had “no equities in the United States.” He asserted the Edward stated he was not a U.S. citizen. Between 2006 and 2015, Edward received a U.S. passport. On August 12, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Edward to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. On August 19, 2015, ICE interviewed Edward and determined that he is a U.S. citizen after he located his U.S. passport record.
32. Jose Nunez Estrada was born in Mexico and naturalized to become a U.S. citizen in 1995. On July 27, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Jose to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office following his arrest. On July 31, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer after locating his N‑400 naturalization record.
33. Rajpauhh Anderson Doughty was born abroad and derived U.S. citizenship from his father’s naturalization after he immigrated as a minor legal permanent resident in 2004. On July 23, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Rajpaugh to Brown County Jail after his arrest by the Brown County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio. On July 24, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer request after discovering that his father’s naturalization.
34. Antonio Almanza Garcia, November 22, 2015 detainer, see details above for details.
35. Miguel Angel Gallego Macias was born in Mexico, received legal permanent residence in the United States in 1998, and derived U.S. citizenship from his father’s naturalization. On July 25, 2011, ICE initiated removal proceedings against him in Los Angeles, California. On May 27, 2012, ICE issued a detainer for Miguel after his arrest by the Baldwin Park Police Department in California. On October 19, 2012, ICE arrested and detained him at Theo Lacy Detention Facility. According to ICE, he made no claims to U.S. citizenship in an interview with ICE. On December 3, 2012, he asserted his U.S. citizenship to an immigration judge. On August 8, 2013, an immigration judge terminated proceedings after determining Miguel was a U.S. citizen, but there was no notation of the termination reason given in the EOIR database. On July 10, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Miguel to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. On July 29, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer after finding prior immigration judge decision.
36. Stefan Olariu was born in Romania and derived U.S. citizenship from his parents’ naturalizations. On July 9, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Stefan to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office after his arrest, believing he was a legal permanent resident. On July 26, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer after it located the naturalization records for his parents.
37. Jinnah Dongo is a U.S. citizen. On June 7, 2015, ICE issued a detainer to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office for Jinnah after his arrest. Databases also associated his fingerprints with a visa overstay by a different name, but ICE records list his citizenship as “US”. There’s no record of the hold being lifted.
38. Alejandro Torres was born abroad and naturalized to become a U.S. citizen in 1992. On May 26, 2015, ICE issued a detainer to the West Valley Detention Facility in Rancho Cucamonga, California after his arrest by the Colton Police Department. ICE stated that “subject has a very similar name and a [date of birth]” to an illegal immigrant “and were mixed up.” On August 14, 2015, ICE lifted the detainer.
39. Christopher Carillo was born in Mexico and derived U.S. citizenship from his father. On June 30, 2008, ICE issued a notice to appear in immigration court to Christopher and a detainer to the Glendale, California. He was released on bond on July 16, 2008, and on August 9, 2008, an immigration judge determined that he was a U.S. citizen based on his father’s naturalization. On May 26, 2015, ICE responded to a local law enforcement agency inquiry from the West Valley Detention Facility, in Rancho Cucamonga, California regarding to the citizenship status of Christopher and issued a detainer. On December 7, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer after it found the records of his prior immigration court proceedings and his father’s naturalization.
40. Nestor Ixta-Rojas was born in Mexico and derived U.S. citizenship from his mother’s naturalization in 2001. On May 21, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Nestor to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office after his arrest, believing him to be a legal permanent resident. On July 23, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer when it discovered his mother’s naturalization record.
41. Miguel Salinas was born in California. On May 19, 2015, after an arrest by San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, ICE issued a detainer. The database associated his fingerprints with an illegal immigrant who entered without inspection. On July 22, 2015, ICE lifted the detainer after finding his U.S. passport number issued in 2009.
42. Marcin Staszak was born in Poland and derived U.S. citizenship from his father’s naturalization in 2002. On May 6, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Marcin in Wisconsin after his arrest by the Dane County Sheriff’s Office, believing him to be a legal permanent resident. On May 8, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer after locating his father’s naturalization record.
43. Clayton Conroy was born in Canada and derived U.S. citizenship from his U.S.-born father. On February 7, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Clayton to the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office believing him to be a legal permanent resident. This detainer appears to have never been executed. On May 2, 2015, ICE issued another detainer for Clayton after his arrested by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office. On May 3, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer after it found his U.S. passport and located his father’s birth record.
44. Manachawa Ogud was born in Ethiopia, immigrated as a refugee in 1997, and derived U.S. citizenship through his mother’s naturalization in 2010. On November 19, 2011, ICE issued a detainer for Manachawa to the Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota following his arrest. This detainer was apparently never rescinded. According to ICE, Manachawa believed he was a legal permanent resident, but he may have been talked into this statement by ICE. He previously claimed U.S. citizenship in order to apply for a U.S. passport, which he was entitled to and which he received. ICE asserted that the State Department improperly issued the passport and claimed that he was not a U.S. citizen because he was in juvenile detention at the time of his mother’s naturalization, but the law only requires that he be in his U.S. citizen parent’s custody at any time prior to his 18^th birthday. On April 28, 2015, ICE issued another detainer for Manachawa to the Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Office. On May 1, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer after further review of the law.
45. Tuyen Le was born in Vietnam and derived U.S. citizenship through the naturalization of his parents in 1996. On April 23, 2015, ICE issued a detainer to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office after it arrested Tuyen for violating a court order. The same day, ICE rescinded the detainer after locating his parent’s naturalization records.
46. Anatoliy Petrov was born in the U.S.S.R. and derived U.S. citizenship from his mother’s naturalization. On September 17, 2012, ICE issued a detainer for Anatoliy to the Los Angeles County Sherriff’s Office following his criminal conviction. On February 20, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Anatoliy to the Los Angeles County Sherriff’s Office after his arrest. It appears that these earlier detainers were never executed or lifted. On April 14, 2015, ICE issued another detainer for Anatoliy after his arrest by the Los Angeles County Sherriff’s Office. On April 25, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer after finding his mother’s naturalization. CIS databases only recorded mother’s first name, and she had a different last name from Anatoliy.
47. Maria Rios Gonzalez was born in Mexico and naturalized to receive U.S. citizenship. On April 8, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Maria after her arrest by the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office in California. ICE asserted that she was an illegal immigrant who entered without inspection. On April 18, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer after it found her naturalization record, which was not recorded in federal databases.
48. Jose Ismael Gallardo Sanchez was born in Honduras and derived U.S. citizenship from his parents’ naturalizations. On March 6, 2015, ICE arrested Jose in Los Angeles and issued a notice to appear in removal proceedings in immigration court, believing him to be a legal permanent resident. On May 21, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Jose to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. On July 23, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer after it located his parents’ naturalization records and his U.S. passport.
49. Anatoliy Petrov, February 20, 2015 detainer, see details above.
50. Clayton Conroy, February 7, 2015 detainer, see details above.
51. Alfred Guerrero-Jimenez was born in Mexico and derived U.S. citizenship from his mother’s naturalization. On January 27, 2015, ICE issued a detainer for Alfred after his arrest by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office for probation violation. Federal databases indicated that he was a legal permanent resident. At a later date, ICE noted that a “memo in Afile indicates subject derived citizenship” because his father was a U.S. citizen and his mother naturalized. ICE records are unclear when or if it rescinded the detainer.
52. Juan Carlos Cisneros Orellana was born in El Salvador and derived U.S. citizenship from his father’s naturalization. On December 26, 2014, ICE issued a detainer for Juan to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office following his arrest for disorderly conduct. Federal databases listed his status as a legal permanent resident, but he became a U.S. citizen upon his entry to the United States in 2002. On May 8, 2015, ICE rescinded the detainer when it found his father’s naturalization record.
53. Jorge Terrazas was born in Arizona. On December 2, 2014, ICE issued a detainer for Jorge after his arrest by the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama. Federal databases associated his fingerprints with an arrest by Border Patrol at an unknown date where he had his fingerprints taken and was photographed but not removed. After an interview and locating his birth record, ICE rescinded the detainer later that day, December 2, 2014.
54. David Carbajal Meza was born in Mexico and derived U.S. citizenship from his mother’s naturalization. In 2009, ICE issued a detainer for David and took him into custody from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office on January 12, 2009. ICE databases indicated that he was a legal permanent resident. On January 14, 2009, ICE released him after determining that he was a U.S. citizen based on his mother’s naturalization. On September 9, 2014, ICE issued another detainer for David after his arrest by the Los Angeles Police Department. At an unknown date, ICE rescinded the detainer after finding his mother’s naturalization.
55. Victor Hurtado, September 5, 2014 detainer, see details above.
56. Raul Vega-Hernandez was born in Mexico, immigrated in 2002, and derived U.S. citizenship. On September 15, 2006, following a criminal conviction, ICE issued a detainer, arrested Raul, and issued a notice to appear/​warrant of arrest for him. On November 20, 2006, an immigration judge terminated the case against him, but the databases do not provide the reason. On August 26, 2014, ICE issued a detainer for Raul following an arrest by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office in California. Federal databases listed him as a legal permanent resident. ICE rescinded the detainer at an unlisted date.
57. Vanna Say, August 25, 2014 detainer, see details above.
58. Lorenzo Palma was born in Mexico and acquired citizenship through his U.S. citizen maternal grandfather. In 2014, ICE issued a detainer to the Texas jail and picked him up in June 2014. He asserted his citizenship from the beginning and provided his grandfather’s birth certificate, but ICE told an immigration judge that he had provided no evidence. The IJ pressed the ICE attorney who ultimately handed him his birth certificate. He continued in detention until finding proof that his grandfather had resided for five years in the United States as an adult as the law requires for acquired citizenship. His total detention was 540 days.
59. Santa Sekiyoshi was born in the United States. On March 29, 2014, ICE issued a detainer for Santa after his arrest by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. Federal databases listed him as a noncitizen. He is a dual citizen of Japan and presented his Japanese passport during a return trip from Japan. An ICE agent interviewed Santa on April 3, 2014 at which time Santa told him that he was a U.S. citizen. ICE located his U.S. passport record and his birth records.
60. Oscar Iniego-Arellano was born in Mexico, came to the United States in 1961, and derived U.S. citizenship from his father who naturalized in 1948. The Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, California requested that ICE review Oscar. On January 22, 2014, ICE issued a detainer for Oscar, and on May 9, 2014, ICE rescinded the detainer after it located his father’s naturalization record and Oscar’s application for a certificate of citizenship from 1975. USCIS does not maintain records for events prior to 1985.
61. Francosco Rodriguez Reyes was born in Mexico and naturalized to receive U.S. citizenship in 1983. On November 30, 2013, ICE issued a detainer for Francosco after his arrest in Riverside, California. Federal databases had no record of his naturalization because it occurred prior to 1985, and he had multiple alien identification numbers. On December 6, 2013, ICE interviewed him and confirmed his naturalization. It released him and told him he needed to “update his [U.S.] Passport and obtain a valid California ID and to carry it at all times.”
62. Gabriel Gamez-Cordova was born in Arizona. On November 22, 2013, ICE issued a detainer for Gabriel after his arrest by Riverside County Sheriff’s Office in California. ICE concluded that he was an illegal immigrant who entered without inspection. On December 24, 2013, ICE interviewed Gabriel at Robert Presley Detention Center at which time Gabriel stated that he was a U.S. citizen born in Arizona under a different name. His mother came to the facility to provide his birth certificate, and ICE rescinded the detainer.
63. Phu Nguyen was born in Vietnam and derived U.S. citizenship from his parents’ naturalizations. On October 22, 2013, ICE issued a detainer for Phu after his arrest by the Orange Police Department in Orange County, California. Federal databases indicated that he was a legal permanent resident but he had derived U.S. citizenship in 1985 after his mother naturalized. At an unrecorded time, ICE rescinded the detainer after locating his parents’ naturalization records.
64. Marta Alicia Cerda Cervantes was born in Mexico and acquired U.S. citizenship through her father’s U.S. citizenship. On October 16, 2013, ICE issued a detainer for Marta after her arrest by the Los Angeles Count Sheriff’s Office. During an ICE interview, ICE states that she made no claim to U.S. citizenship, but located her father’s birth record and found her to be a U.S. citizen. The ICE agent “encouraged [her] to apply for a passport.”
65. Roberto Rodriguez-Gomez was born in Texas. On August 27, 2013, ICE issued a detainer for Roberto after his arrest by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. ICE stated that he had entered without inspection after a fingerprint check of federal databases. At a later date, ICE determined that he was a U.S. citizen after it located his birth certificate.
66. Levon Iskandaryan was born in Armenia and derived U.S. citizenship in 2000. On August 6, 2013, ICE issued a detainer for Levon after his arrest by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. On September 23, 2013, his mother faxed his naturalization certificate and a copy of his U.S. passport to the jail. The USCIS databases listed an incorrect date of birth, incorrect sex, and certificate number. His sister’s details were confused with his.
67. Alberto Rodriguez was born in the United States. On June 24, 2013, ICE issued a detainer for Alberto following his arrest by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, asserting that he had entered without inspection. On June 27, 2013, Alberto had a copy of his U.S. birth certificate faxed to ICE, and ICE rescinded the hold.
68. Simon Chinivizyan was born in Uzbekistan and naturalized to become a U.S. citizen. After Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department arrested him, ICE issued a detainer request on June 23, 2013. A judge ordered him to undergo drug treatment, but the police refused to release him due to his immigration detainer. After he filed suit against ICE, the agency lifted the detainer on July 12, ten days after his release date.
69. Elizabeth Anne Gilbreath was born in Canada and acquired U.S. citizenship through her parents’ U.S. citizenship. On June 16, 2013, ICE issued a detainer for Elizabeth to the Santa Monica Police Department in Los Angeles County after she was arrested for a local ordinance violation. ICE databases associated her fingerprints with the record of another a legal permanent resident. Only after her sister came to support her assertions of U.S. citizenship, ICE permitted her release “with instructions to report in person on 6/19/2013 … with proof of citizenship.” She reported and presented her U.S. passport.
70. Francisco Patron was born in the United States. He was raised in Mexico because his parents fled to the United States to escape death threats from her father for getting her pregnant. Her father was very influential in Mexico. On April 15, 2013, ICE issued a detainer to the Los Angeles County Jail for Francisco. ICE databases associated his photograph with an alien previously deported several times due to a prior run-in with ICE. ICE states, “This encounter is under a San Bernardino encounter which could have saved us a lot of time if they had put they verified he was the real United States citizen.” ICE believed he was using an alias of a U.S. citizen but after locating his California birth certificate, it concluded he was the genuine U.S. citizen. On April 22, 2013, ICE lifted the hold.
71. Ramon Garcia-Olimpio was born in the United States. On February 25, 2013, ICE issued a detainer for Ramon after his arrest by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, asserting that he had entered without inspection. On March 26, 2013, during an interview with an ICE agent, he asserted that he was a U.S. citizen. He said that his birth record was under mother’s maiden name rather than his father’s name because his “father would drink a lot and his mother would get made and eventually kick [his father] out.” On March 26, 2013, ICE rescinded the detainer after it located his birth record in California vital records.
72. Mario Ruiz-Grimaldo, February 22, 2013 detainer, see details above.
73. Michael Roque Gomez was born in California. On August 12, 2010, a 278(g) officer issued a detainer for Michael in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. He asserted that Michael was removable and that Michael made no claims to U.S. citizenship. Michael accepted voluntary return to Mexico on August 18, 2010. He returned to the country, and on January 23, 2013, ICE issued a detainer for Michael after his arrest by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. On February 28, 2013, ICE lifted the detainer after it discovered his U.S. birth certificate in California vital records and his U.S. passport record. It granted him “extended voluntary departure” relief until an immigration judge heard his case. On October 9, 2014, an immigration judge dismissed removal proceedings against Michael, and ICE cancelled the charging document.
74. Vanna Say, December 12, 2012 detainer, see details above.
75. Abraham Alejandro Gonzalez-Alarcon was born in Mexico, entered the United States in 2005, and derived his U.S. citizenship from his U.S. citizen mother. His mother was born in the United States during a temporary trip there and never received a birth certificate. On December 7, 2012, the U.S. deported him to Mexico and did so again upon his reentry on January 11, 2014. On April 24, 2015, Border Patrol apprehended Alarcon in Sunland Park, New Mexico and referred him for prosecution for illegal reentry. Abraham’s lawyer discovered that he was actually a U.S. citizen, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office dropped the criminal charge after he sent him evidence of his derivative U.S. citizenship. In 2015, ICE issued a detainer, and DOJ had him transferred to ICE custody. His attorney filed a habeas petition on his behalf as he was on his way in an ICE bus to be deported. ICE released him on October 14, 2015 after nearly six months of detention. Since then, he has fought the government’s attempt to remove him and was required to stay in Oklahoma City and report to ICE.
76. Gerardo Gonzalez Jr. was born in California. After he came into the custody of the Los Angeles County jail, ICE issued a hold on December 31, 2012 because a Los Angeles County sheriff wrote that he was born in Mexico. ICE ignored FBI records indicating that he was a U.S. citizen. No one informed Gonzalez of the detainer until he attempted to post bond and leave jail. At that point, he decided not to post bond because he was told that the county would not release him. Thus, he continued in jail due to the detainer. On June 19, 2013, after he filed a lawsuit, ICE rescinded the detainer. His case led to a federal court ruling finding that ICE could not use detainers based on database checks alone.
77. Anatoliy Petrov, September 17, 2012 detainer, see details above.
78. Luis M. Rodriguez was born in Mexico and acquired his U.S. citizenship from his U.S. citizen parent. On May 26, 2012, while serving a weekend sentence for violating a protective order in the Sonoma County jail, ICE issued a detainer request. Jail staff informed him of the detainer when they declined to release him the next day. His sister brought his U.S. passport to the jail to prove his citizenship, but the jail refused to release him due to the detainer. ICE removed the detainer after two days of additional detention.
79. Frank Serna was born in Mexico and derived his U.S. citizenship from his father. In 2004, ICE arrested Serna for being in the country illegally and sought his deportation in Dallas. They disputed the citizenship of his father. An immigration judge terminated the proceedings. In 2009, ICE arrested Serna again but then released him. On May 8, 2012, ICE issued a detainer to Houston authorities, arrested him a third time, and again sought a removal order. On June 7, 2013, another immigration judge terminated proceedings against him and order him released. Serna states that E‑Verify prevented him from working, and he had great difficulty finding a job. According to his attorney Andrew Free in a December 27, 2019 email to me, he received a damages settlement from ICE before filing a lawsuit.
80. Rigoberto Amador Flores was born in California. On November 21, 2011, Redondo Beach Police Department arrested Flores for an unrelated crime and detained him for eight days in Los Angeles County custody, including over Thanksgiving, due to an ICE immigration detainer. ICE lifted the detainer on November 29, 2011.
81. Manachawa Ogud, November 19, 2011 detainer, see details above.
82. Romy Campos was born in Florida. On November 12, 2011, Torrance police arrested her for a misdemeanor charge. ICE issued a detainer, and the police transferred her to Los Angeles County jail. Because she also has Spanish citizenship, she once used her Spanish passport to enter the United States, which led ICE to believe that she had overstayed. She protested her citizenship, but it continued to detain her until she produced her birth certificate four days later. She was detained an additional two days because of the ICE detainer. On November 16, 2011, ICE cancelled the detainer.
83. Robert Dominguez was born in Massachusetts. In July 1998, as an 18-year-old, he completed a sentence at Essex County Correctional Facility. In September 1999, INS issued a detainer and took him into custody, detaining him for two months. Dominguez’s mother had applied for Dominican birth certificate for him under a false name pretending to be a relative of a U.S. citizen and eligible for sponsorship for a green card. Her plan succeeded, so she and Robert were issued green cards. Unable to afford an attorney, INS officials convinced him that he was not born in the United States and told him to admit to immigrant status, so that he could get out of jail. He also did not realize that deportation had permanent consequences. He was deported on October 13, 1999. He waited in the Dominican Republic, thinking a probation officer would contact him. After one never did, he contacted a lawyer in the United States who helped him receive a new passport from the U.S. embassy in September 2009, ten years after his deportation. On October 5, 2011, Haverhill Police arrested him for a drug charge, and ICE issued a detainer to the Essex County Jail. ICE claims that Dominguez was using the birth certificate, pictures, and other documents obtained by another unidentified person of the same name. His U.S. passport was revoked at ICE’s request. His lawsuit was still ongoing.
84. Andres Robles Gonzalez was born in Mexico and derived citizenship from his father’s naturalization in 2002. He was arrested by local police for drug and theft charges, and on July 26, 2007, ICE issued a detainer and took him into custody on October 9, 2008 despite his assertions of U.S. citizenship. They placed him in removal proceedings despite listing his nationality as American. After his immigration attorney wrongly admitted his deportability over his objections, he was deported on December 31, 2008. Separated from his friends and families, he suffered “nearly three torturous years hiding from grisly cartel violence and witnessing horrific atrocities in Mexico.” After ICE admitted his citizenship, and he received documentary proof of citizenship on June 15, 2011, ICE again issued a detainer for him in August 2011, releasing it on August 31, 2011. Robles filed a lawsuit and received $350,000 in damages from ICE.
85. Jose Velazquez was born in California. On July 13, 2011, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office arrested Velasquez, and ICE issued a detainer request. The sheriff’s office detained him for a day before his wife managed to get ICE to cancel the request.
86. Jose Jimenez Moreno was born in Mexico and acquired citizenship from his U.S. citizen father. Rockford, Illinois police arrested Jimenez on March 21, 2011. The following day, ICE issued a detainer to Winnebago County Jail to hold him for an additional 48 hours so that they could assume custody. According to ICE, Jimenez stated that he admitted to crossing the border illegally in March before asserting his citizenship claim in August. On August 12, 2011, Jimenez filed a lawsuit to have the detainer removed, and ICE cancelled it on August 22, 2011. His case led to a court ruling that detainers are illegal.
87. Richard Ortega was born in Texas. On March 19, 2011, Ortega began a sentence of home confinement, which also allowed for travel to work, when Louisville Metro Department of Corrections showed up at his house to bring him to jail due to an ICE detainer. He tried to correct the mistake immediately, but because it was the weekend, no one at ICE responded to his calls. Four days later, ICE admitted that they had confused Ortega with another person and that it had issued the detainer “just in case.” Ortega sued, but the Sixth Circuit, while finding that he had a “liberty interest” in his home confinement, found that it was not “well-established” and so he could not hold the officers accountability for his detention (i.e. “qualified immunity”).
88. Sergey Mayorov was born in Belarus and derived his citizenship from his mother’s naturalization in 2005 while he was a minor. In December 2010, Vienna, Illinois police arrested him for drug possession. He entered into a plea agreement based on the belief that he would serve no jail time and attend a diversionary boot camp for four months. ICE issued a detainer in March 2011. The immigration detainer made Mayorov no longer eligible for the diversionary program, and Illinois officials rearrested him and placed him at the Shawnee Correctional Center where he served a prison sentence from March 2011 to April 2012, a 13-month sentence due to the wrongful detainer. He filed a motion to join a class action lawsuit challenging the legality of detainers and seeking damages.
89. A constituent of Rep. Dan Burton (R‑IN) whose name was withheld to protect his privacy was born abroad and naturalized to become a U.S. citizen. On January 27, 2011, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department arrested him, and the following day, ICE issued a detainer. On January 31, Congressman Burton’s staff reached out to ICE to protest the detainer, and ICE withdrew the detainer the same day. Finally, on February 7, USCIS confirmed that he was naturalized in 1974. USCIS does not maintain records for events prior to 1985.
90. Angelica Davila was born in Mexico, acquired citizenship through her U.S. citizen parents, and had lived in the United States since the age of 2. Pittsburgh police pulled her over. Her passenger admitted to illegal status, and the officer reported her to ICE, which issued detainers for both women. Her detainer misspelled her name as “Devila-Garcoa,” listed her status as “family fairness granted,” and provided the wrong alien registration number. The officer incarcerated both women in Allegheny County Jail. She was detained overnight before the officer and ICE both admitted the mistake after the ICE agent viewed a photo of Angelica. She had previously obtained a certificate of U.S. citizenship. She filed a lawsuit, and the county settled, agreeing to pay $25,000 in damages and cease honoring ICE detainers. The county also changed immigration detainer policy in response to the lawsuit.
91. Josue whose full name is withheld to protect his identity is a U.S. citizen of Mexican ancestry. In 2011, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office arrested him for DUI and accused him of lying about his identity. Although he provided a copy of his birth certificate, ICE issued a detainer and arrested him, releasing him only after he provided the original certificate.
92. James Makowski was born in India, naturalized through his adoption by two U.S. citizens at the age of one, and served in the Marines. In October 2009, while Makowski was in DuPage, County, Illinois’s custody, ICE issued a detainer for his continued detention. The county detained him, and he explained his citizenship to an ICE official in the jail, and the county released on bond. After the county again arrested him, ICE issued another detainer on July 8, 2010, which stated that ICE had initiated an “investigation.” He pled guilty to a drug charge in exchange for the opportunity to undergo a rehabilitation boot camp, but upon being transferred there, he was transferred back to a maximum security prison because people subject to ICE detainers are ineligible for diversionary programs. From December 6, 2010 to January 25, 2011, ICE kept the detainer in place, while Makowski remained incarcerated in the maximum security facility. It cancelled the detainer. The detainer resulted in four additional months of detention.
93. Victor Jimenez was born abroad and naturalized to become a U.S. citizen in 2000. On August 29, 2010, while in Indianapolis police custody, ICE issued a detainer requesting his transfer. His name, date of birth, and social security number in the jail system would have shown his U.S. citizenship status. For this reason, he was denied bail and continued in detention despite protesting his citizenship. Two days later, Indianapolis police transferred him to ICE, which shipped him to Chicago. The next day, ICE released him. He filed a lawsuit, which ICE settled for an undisclosed amount.
94. Michael Roque Gomez, August 12, 2010 detainer, see details above.
95. Eduardo Caraballo was born in the United States in Puerto Rico. On May 20, while in Cook County custody, ICE issued a detainer, and for this reason, he could not bail himself out of jail. Despite presenting his birth certificate, it refused to release him. The county held him over the weekend before ICE released the hold.
96. Ramon Mendoza was born abroad and naturalized to become a U.S. citizen. On Friday, March 5, 2010 in Nebraska, Sarpy County police pulled over Mendoza because he had an “obstruction” on his rear-view mirror: a small medal on a ribbon. He also had a Mexican flag folded on the shelf behind the rear window. They arrested him for driving without a current driver’s license or proof of insurance. They attempted to contact ICE to determine his legal status, and ICE agents told them that there was a detainer for him, even though there was not. While no formal detainer was issued, this statement acted as a de facto detainer request by ICE. During this time, Ramon continued in detention without bond for three days before his release. He filed a lawsuit that was dismissed because, as the judge stated, “his plight is simply not severe enough to amount to a constitutional tort.” Sarpy County and another Nebraska county changed its detainer policy.
97. Oshane Shaneil Cross was born in Jamaica and derived his citizenship from his father in 2001. On January 15, 2010, after Connecticut police sentenced him for theft, ICE issued a detainer and placed Cross in removal proceedings. He remained in proceedings until February 12, 2015 when the Board of Immigration Appeals concluded that he is a U.S. citizen because Jamaica had removed all distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate children, overturning an earlier BIA decision from 2008. ICE detained him for an undetermined period.
98. James Makowski, October 2009 detainer, see details above.
99. Ada Morales was born in Guatemala and naturalized to become a U.S. citizen in 1995. ICE wrongfully detained her two times. In July 2004, Cranston Police Department in Rhode Island arrested Morales for a charge that was dismissed. ICE issued a detainer and arrested her in the courthouse. The agents detainer her for two hours before releasing her. ICE maintained no records of the detention, and on May 4, 2009, after Rhode Island State Police arrested her, ICE issued another detainer for her. Rhode Island Police held her overnight, despite a court order releasing her and her protesting the detainer, and ICE arrested and brought her to the ICE office the next day and then released her that morning. She filed a lawsuit, and the government settled for $35,000.
100. Cesar Cervantes was born in the United States. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve for eight years. On September 9, 2006, while in custody of Danville Correctional Center in Illinois, ICE issued a detainer to the prison. The detainer resulted in his inability to transfer to a drug treatment facility and prevented him for obtaining educational training during his time in prison. He sued to have the detainer lifted, which it was on September 28, 2012. His compensation claim was dismissed.
101. Juan Alameda was born in Mexico and acquired U.S. citizenship through his father. After serving a sentence for a drug crime in February 2009, ICE issued a detainer and arrested him. A lawyer informed him that his father’s U.S. citizenship gave him U.S. citizenship. After he asserted his claim, the agency detained him for a year while he attempted to find proof of his father’s citizenship and residency in the United States. In February 2010, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services granted Alameda a certificate of citizenship.
102. David Carbajal Meza, January 12, 2009 detainer, see details above.
103. Douglas Centeno was born in Nicaragua and derived his citizenship from his father at the time of his father’s naturalization. Centeno suffers from schizophrenia, and after a December 2008 arrest in Modesto, California, ICE issued a detainer and arrested him. His lawyer told him that he had received citizenship through his father. ICE continued to detain him for weeks, while the lawyer collected documents to prove his citizenship claim. ICE released him after four months.
104. Ernesto Galarza was born in New Jersey. After an arrest in Lehigh County for a drug offense, on November 21, 2008, an ICE agent issued a detainer for Galarza, despite having his place of birth, social security number, and Galarza’s statement asserting citizenship. When Galarza posted bond, the jail refused to release him due to the detainer. No one informed him the reason for the detainer until November 24, 2008. At this point, he again told the county officials about his U.S. birth and citizenship, and he was released that afternoon after 3 days of false imprisonment. He filed a lawsuit, and the Third Circuit Appeals Court determined that the county could be held liable. The federal government, the city of Allentown, and Lehigh County settled the case for $145,000, and the county changed its policy regarding detainers.
105. Frank Ponce de Leon was born in Mexico, derived his citizenship through his father who was born in New Mexico, and served in the military during World War II. Ponce de Leon had five U.S.-born children, including a U.S. Army nurse. On March 18, 2008, an ICE agent issued an immigration detainer for him while he was in state prison, despite the fact that an immigration judge in February 2008 had determined his younger brother also born in Mexico to be a U.S. citizen through his father. On October 14, 2008, ICE brought him into custody and, despite his U.S. citizenship claims throughout, it initiated removal proceedings and detained him for three months. It was not until his attorney filed a habeas petition on his behalf on December 29, 2008 that the government responded, releasing him on January 6, 2009. An immigration judge terminated proceeding the next day. ICE asserted that it could issue another detainer if he was arrested by law enforcement while his application for certificate of citizenship was pending, even though it knew he was a U.S. citizen.
106. Andres Robles Gonzalez, October 9, 2008 detainer, see details above.
107. Mark Lyttle was born in North Carolina. He suffers severe mental disabilities and is “barely literate.” On September 5, 2008, while in North Carolina custody, ICE issued a detainer for Lyttle. They had previously checked computer databases and verified that Lyttle was a U.S. citizen and had interviewed him in which he told them that he was a citizen and his mother was born in the United States. However, the ICE agents who were aware of his disabilities asserted that he was using an alias and had entered illegally at the age of 3. On September 8, 2008, the agents coerced Lyttle into signing a Notice of Intent form, waiving his right to a removal hearing and allowing his deportation. North Carolina detained Lyttle for two days after his sentence concluded on October 26. Protesting his citizenship throughout, ICE detained him from October 28 to December 18 at which point he was ordered to walk alone into Mexico with $3 in his pocket. On December 29, he attempted to return to the United States claiming to be a U.S. citizen, and CBP agents sent him back to Mexico based on his prior deportation. Lyttle spent the next 115 days homeless and destitute in Mexico and Central America, eating from the garbage. Mexican authorities deported Lyttle to Honduras. Honduran official placed him in a jail. He ended up incarcerated in both Nicaragua and Guatemala. A U.S. embassy official was able to identify Lyttle’s citizenship in a day, quickly send word to his family, and issue him a new passport. On April 22, 2009, he arrived in Tennessee, and CBP again detained for two days. He filed a lawsuit and received a $175,000 settlement.
108. Jose Ledesma was born in California. In the late 1990s, as a juvenile living in foster care, he told INS that he was born in Mexico in order to reunite with his deported mother, and he voluntarily left the country. In 2003, he was stopped crossing the border, and despite asserting his U.S. citizenship claim, an immigration judge ordered deported again. In 2005, ICE arrested him again, and he presented his U.S. birth certificate but was told that it had been “canceled,” and ICE detained and deported again. In 2008, while in state custody in California, ICE issued a detainer and transferred him to a facility that ICE rented from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office. In 2008, an immigration judge ordered him deported. He reached out to a reporter and obtained proof of his birth. After the report about the case, ICE released him on December 31, 2008.
109. John Henry is a U.S. citizen. In June 2008, while he served a criminal sentence, ICE issued a detainer for him. He challenged the detainer, but his case was dismissed because the court reasoned that he was not being detained due to the detainer.
110. Elena Katz was born abroad and naturalized to become a U.S. citizen. On June 5, 2008, Rockingham County Sheriff’s Department in New Hampshire arrested Katz, and ICE issued an immigration detainer, which kept her in custody even after she was granted bail. Despite presenting evidence of her naturalization, Boston police refused to believe her citizenship claim and kept her in custody on the basis of the detainer for 40 days. She filed a lawsuit, which was dismissed.
111. Omar Jorge Perez Moreno was born in Mexico and derived his citizenship through his father. On May 26, 2007, local police in South Bend, Washington arrested him, and ICE issued a detainer for his arrest. On June 20, he was transferred to ICE. An immigration attorney determined that he was a U.S. citizen, and he was ultimately released.
112. Davino Watson was born in Jamaica and derived his U.S. citizenship from his father in 2002. After Watson’s arrest for a drug offense, ICE issued a detainer and brought him into custody on May 8, 2008. He immediately asserted his citizenship claim and provided a copy of his father’s naturalization certificate. He did not receive a hearing in immigration court until June 25, 2008. After 1,273 days on November 2, 2011, ICE released him without proof of citizenship or employment authorization. He was unable to find employment and became destitute, before his certificate of citizenship was issued on November 26, 2013. A district court awarded him $82,500 in damages, but the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled him ineligible because the statute of limitations had expired while he was still in ICE custody without a lawyer.
113. Heidy Hazel Baires Larios was born in El Salvador and derived U.S. citizenship from the naturalization of her father while she was a minor. Local Texas police pulled her over and arrested her for driving with passengers who had open beer. In about March 2006, ICE issued a detainer and arrested her. On August 28, 2007, an immigration judge ordered her removed, rejecting her evidence that she had been in the custody of her father at the time of his naturalization, as the law requires for derivative citizenship. She spent two years in jail while she appealed the decision, and eventually, on March 10, 2008, the Board of Immigration Appeals validated her claim of citizenship.
114. Cesar Antonio Salas was born in California. He suffers from “diminished mental capacity and diminished cognitive abilities.” Two different agencies of the U.S. government wrongly deported Salas two times and detained him wrongly five times. While returning from Mexico in May 2001, CBP officers at the port of entry badgered Salas into falsely stating that he was not a U.S. citizen and deported him to Mexico. Alone and without money, Salas wondered around Mexico homeless eating from garbage and sleeping in the open from May 2001 to July 2007. Criminals abducted him, assaulted him, and extorted money from his family in the United States. Upon attempting to return to the United States in July 2007, CBP officers deported him again. After his mother located him, she returned with him to the United States. On March 1, 2008, Salas returned from a trip to the United States with his father, and CBP again detained him, destroyed his identification documents, and charged with unlawful reentry after a deportation. The U.S. attorney dropped the charges two weeks later, but on March 15, 2008 ICE placed a detainer on Salas, and CBP transferred him to ICE where he continued in detention for the remainder of the month. ICE then released Salas in the middle of El Paso alone and without money, forcing his family to carry out another frantic search for several hours. On April 8, 2011, CBP again detained and handcuffed Salas at the border before the agents released him.
115. Rohan Douglas was born in the British Virgin Islands and derived his U.S. citizenship from his mother’s naturalization while he was still a child. On September 28, 2005, Pinellas County, Florida police arrested Douglas for driving with a suspended license. On December 1, 2005, ICE issued a detainer. On January 18, 2006, Pinellas County turned Douglas over to ICE. From then until September 25, 2006, ICE wrongfully detained Douglas—247 days. On February 19, 2008, he was again arrested for driving on a suspended license (and for illegal possession of a firearm), and ICE again issued a detainer the same day. Despite having copies of his mother’s naturalization form and his bond paperwork listing him as a citizen, ICE arrested him the following day and detained him again until May 1, 2008, another 70 days. ICE released him on May 1 subject to ankle monitoring. Eight months later, the government admitted his citizenship and released him from their custody. He filed a lawsuit, and on June 22, 2011, the judge dismissed the government’s motion for summary judgment in their favor. On June 26, 2011, he received a judgement in his favor of $65,500.
116. Eva [Pseudonym] was born in the United States. In February 2008, Los Angeles police arrested her for a drug charge. The arresting officer wrongly wrote that she was born in Belize. ICE issued a detainer and arrested her. She remained in immigration detention in Arizona for two months until she could afford a new birth certificate.
117. Conway Wiltshire was born in Jamaica, moved to the United States as a four-year-old, and derived his U.S. citizenship from his parents’ naturalizations. On October 25, 2007, while he was in state custody serving a criminal conviction in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, ICE issued a detainer, and when ICE agents met with Wiltshire, he asserted his U.S. citizenship. On January 24, 2008, he was transferred to ICE custody in York, Pennsylvania. He was transferred to El Paso and held until April 23, 2008 when he was released with no money and no means of transportation back to Philadelphia. He filed a lawsuit, which was settled for $49,500, according to a July 24, 2018 email from his lawyer Jonathan Feinberg.
118. Michael Romero Jimenez was born abroad and derived his U.S. citizenship from his father. In 2008, ICE detained him, and while an immigration judge found that he was a U.S. citizen and allowed him to be released on $1,500 bond—falsely stating that he lacked the power to release him on his own recognizance—but he could not afford the bond. ICE appealed the citizenship determination and detained him for seven months before releasing him.
119. Thomas Warziniack was born in Minnesota. In late 2007, local Colorado police arrested him for a minor drug charge. His probation officer observed signs of mental illness, leading Thomas to claim initially that he was a Russian expatriate, despite his distinctive American accent. Colorado prison officials reported him to ICE, which brought him into custody on December 18, 2007. On January 10, he asserted his U.S. citizenship in immigration court, but was detained until January 24, 2008. He was in ICE custody for 37 days.
120. Jose Arteaga-Ruiz was born in Mexico and derived U.S. citizenship from his mother in 2001. While he was in prison at the Nevada Department of Corrections in 2007, ICE issued a detainer and took custody of him about November 26, 2007. ICE detained him for eight days until December 4, 2007. Without an attorney, he admitted removability, and ICE deported him the same day. In 2010, he returned to the United States illegally across the border. After an attorney informed him that he was a U.S. citizen, he filed a lawsuit, which was dismissed.
121. Rene Saldivar was born outside the United States and acquired his citizenship through his father. Saldivar is mentally handicapped. Riverbank Police in California arrested him for failing to show up for probation visits following an arrest for drug paraphernalia. Following his sentence on October 11, 2007, ICE issued a detainer and brought him into custody. According to the agency, he never told them that he was a U.S. citizen. His family couldn’t find him for six months after an ICE agent misspelled his name as “Saldidar.” Finally, on April 28, 2008, he proved his U.S. citizenship claim using his father’s Railroad Retirement Board records and was released.
122. Anna [pseudonym] was born in the United States. Anna is mentally handicapped and suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. On October 8, 2007, Phoenix Police Department arrested Anna for prostitution. She told an officer that she was from Paris, though she could not speak French. Earlier that year, she had had drug charges dismissed when a judge found her mentally “unable to understand the nature of the proceedings.” On October 9, 2007, the police transferred to ICE Eloy Detention Center, and ICE agent Kristine Brisson placed her in removal proceedings. On February 20, 2008, an immigration judge ordered her removed from the country. France informed ICE that she was not a French citizen and refused to take her back.
123. Irving Palomo was born in Mexico and acquired his U.S. citizenship from his mother through her father. ICE wrongfully detained Palomo two times. In 1995, INS ordered Palomo deported as a child, but his mother did not comply with the order. In September 2007, when Davidson County, Tennessee police pulled him over, they detained him under a 287(g) agreement. According to ICE, he told the deputies that he was “foreign-born,” but his attorneys presented evidence of his U.S. citizenship, and the deputies still ignored it and shipped him to an Alabama ICE facility. ICE detained him for 15 days before releasing him in Alabama where he had to find a ride back to Nashville. He then had to report every month for twenty months to the ICE office until he received his U.S. passport in June 2009—20 additional days of lost freedom.
124. Armando Vergara Ceballos was born outside the United States and naturalized in 1996 to become a U.S. citizen. After a criminal conviction in San Diego, California, ICE issued a detainer and commenced removal proceedings against him in June 2007. He could not find his certificate of naturalization received a decade earlier, which was misplaced while he was in prison. Although ICE admitted in immigration proceedings on July 13, 2007 that Vergara “might have become a United States Citizen,” it did not release him. In August 14, 2007, it stated that INS or USCIS had lost his immigration records, but ICE still refused to terminate proceedings. He filed a habeas corpus petition, and the court denied it because he had yet to exhaust his administrative options in immigration court. He was held for three more months before being released.
125. Pedro Guzman was born and raised in California. Guzman is mentally disabled, is unable to read at more than a second-grade level, and cannot remember basic information like his phone number. In March 2007, he wandered into a private airport and attempted to board a plane, and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department arrested him for trespassing. As part of a 287(g) agreement, the sheriff’s department identified him as an illegal immigrant, despite having records of his valid state ID, and referred him to ICE. Around April 26, 2007, ICE issued a detainer and arrested him. He immediately asserted his U.S. citizenship, but on May 10, 2007, an ICE agent convinced him to sign a voluntary removal order written in Spanish, which he could not read. His medical records, which were available to ICE, indicated that he could not execute a voluntary waiver of his legal rights. On May 11, 2007, ICE deported him to Mexico with $3 in his pocket and without returning his wallet with his driver’s license. During the next 85 days, he was homeless in Mexico, sleeping outside and eating out of the garbage, while his family members searched Tijuana for him. On August 6, 2007, Border Patrol arrested him attempting to cross the border into the United States, and he was returned to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s custody where medical personnel found him in such a poor condition that they believed that he was mentally incapable of speaking.
126. Godson Akran was born in Nigeria and derived his U.S. citizenship from his mother’s naturalization. While in federal custody following a fraud conviction, ICE issued a detainer, and on April 17, 2007, ICE took custody of him. After three months, he finally received a bond hearing at which bond was denied. On April 21, 2008, ICE released him following USCIS’s issuance of his certificate of citizenship. He filed a lawsuit, which was dismissed.
127. Nahuel Castrucci was born in Chile and derived his U.S. citizenship from his mother’s naturalization. In the spring of 2007, Chelsea, Massachusetts police arrested him, but never charged him with a crime and transferred him to ICE based on a detainer. He immediately stated that he believed that he was a U.S. citizen because his mother was, but ICE placed him in removal proceedings without an attorney and held him for a month. His mother interrupted his removal hearing to say that he was a U.S. citizen, only then did ICE investigate the claim and release him.
128. Roberto Grajeda-Mendez was born in the United States. On October 8, 1998, INS officers in Honolulu, Hawaii arrested Roberto and placed him in removal proceedings, asserting that he had entered without inspection. On March 5, 2007, ICE issued a detainer for Roberto to the Las Vegas City Detention Center. ICE databases indicate that he entered without inspection. On February 4, 2009, ICE took custody of him. He asserted he was a U.S. citizen during intake, and he called his girlfriend to fax a copy of his U.S. birth certificate. ICE released him the same day, stating that it was “due [to] the fact that ICE could not prove or disprove his citizenship.”
129. Hector Veloz was born abroad and acquired his U.S. citizenship through his father. While in state custody in 2007, ICE issued a detainer, took custody of him, and detained him for the next 13 months. He had to prove his citizenship claim while in detention. His aunt found his father’s birth certificate, and his father’s U.S. military, school, and Social Security records. His father was a veteran who served in the U.S. military in Vietnam, and when he left for the war, his pregnant mother moved to stay with relatives in Mexico where Veloz was born. His paperwork stated that he entered illegally and that his father was a Mexican citizen. Even after an immigration judge determined he and his father were U.S. citizens, however, he was detained for five more months as ICE appealed the decision.
130. Herbert Flores-Torres was born in El Salvador and derived his U.S. citizenship from his mother. In October 2006, while he was in California state custody, ICE issued a detainer, arrested him, and placed him in removal proceedings. He remained in ICE custody from October 2006 to December 23, 2009 through an array of proceedings to determine if his father “legitimated” him before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California finally determined that he was a U.S. citizen.
131. Raul Vega-Hernandez, September 15, 2006 detainer, see details above.
132. Viterbo Liranzo was born in the Dominican Republic and derived his U.S. citizenship from his mother’s naturalization. While Liranzo was in Nassau County custody in Louisiana, ICE interviewed him. He admitted removability, and ICE issued a detainer on January 25, 2006. On April 4, 2006, he was held at a federal detention in Louisiana pending removal. On May 3, his attorney asserted his U.S. citizenship claim in immigration court. He was released on June 30, 2006—88 days after entering ICE custody.
133. Rohan Douglas, December 2005 detainer, see details above.
134. Cesar Ramirez-Lopez was born in Mexico and derived his U.S. citizenship from his father. On March 9, 2005, while serving a criminal sentence in Richmond, California, ICE issued a detainer. His attorney determined that he was a U.S. citizen, and before the detainer was executed on August 12, 2005, ICE canceled the detainer. On January 6, 2006, ICE issued another detainer and arrested him the same day, detaining him for three days. On February 13, 2006, USCIS sent him his Certificate of Citizenship. He filed a lawsuit, which ICE settled for $10,000.
135. Shawn Theodore Hines was born in Jamaica and derived his U.S. citizenship from his mother’s naturalization. Following a criminal conviction on April 6, 2001, he served a sentence in New Jersey, and ICE issued a detainer probably in 2006 and initiated removal proceedings. He asserted his U.S. citizenship, and ICE contested his claim on the grounds that his father had “legitimated” him but had not naturalized. ICE detained him until February 26, 2007 when an immigration judge determined him to be a U.S. citizen. ICE appealed, and the BIA affirmed the IJ’s decision.
136. Mohammed Adil Adem was born in Sudan and derived his U.S. citizenship from his parents’ naturalizations. In September 2005, following a criminal arrest, ICE issued a detainer, arrested, and detained Mohammed for a year and a half. They delayed his removal proceedings to produce a translation of his birth certificate, but incorrectly translated the date on it. The immigration judge accused Mohammed of lying and ordered him deported. He almost gave up, but Florence Project convinced him to reopen his case and continue. On March 9, 2007, an immigration judge finally determined that he was a U.S. citizen due to his parents’ naturalizations before his 18^th birthday. It took another 40 days for ICE to release him.
137. John Nasious was born in Colorado. On June 6, 2005, Denver police arrested Nasious on forgery charges. On August 3, 2005, he told an ICE agent that he was born in Greece, so when the agent discovered no records showing that he was a U.S citizen in federal databases, he issued a detainer the same day. On April 24, 2006, ICE lifted the detainer when it received Nasious’s birth certificate.
138. Kelechi Gerald Nwozuzu was born Nigeria and derived his citizenship from his parents’ naturalizations. On January 7, 2004, New York convicted Nwozuzu for drug and illegal gun possession. ICE agents interviewed him at Rikers Island, and he told them his parents had naturalized before his 18^th birthday. On June 16, 2005, ICE filed a notice to appear in immigration court and a detainer. ICE took custody of him on June 17, 2005. After a 16-month detention, an IJ released him based on his citizenship claim on October 16, 2006. ICE appealed the decision, and BIA reversed the decision in 2008 on the grounds that he needed to have become a legal permanent resident before his parents’ naturalizations. On January 15, 2010, ICE arrested him for a second time. Finally, on August 16, 2012, the district court in New Jersey granted his habeas corpus petition, giving him the opportunity to pursue bond. On August 12, 2013, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected ICE’s arguments that he needed to be a legal permanent resident to derive naturalization and ruled that he likely was a U.S. citizen. He was detained for roughly 1,320 (44 months) days total.
139. Samuel Ankrah was born in Ghana, moved to the United States at age 11, was admitted as a lawful permanent resident, and derived U.S. citizenship from his mother. However, Samuel could have only received US citizenship if “the paternity of the alien had not been established by legitimation in the country of birth.” In other words, did the father care for him and was he named according to appropriate tribal practices pursuant to Ghanaian law. On June 17, 2005, following a criminal conviction, ICE issued a detainer and notice to appear in immigration court. On August 24, 2005, the immigration judge ruled that Samuel did not prove he was illegitimate under the Ghanaian law, so he was not a U.S. citizen, and ordered his removal. He appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and it overturned the decision, remanding for further consideration of the credibility of his evidence. On March 8, 2006, the IJ again ordered Samuel’s removal not accepting his evidence of Ghanaian law, and the BIA upheld. On July 21, 2007, a federal district court judge finally ruled that he was a U.S. citizen and ordered his release.
140. Wilsonis Ayala-Villanueva was born in El Salvador and derived U.S. citizenship from his mother in 1987. The Immigration and Naturalization Service arrested him and placed him in removal proceedings on March 6, 2003 and was released on April 7, 2003. His case hinged on the identity of his father who Ayala-Villanueva had assumed was his mother’s husband, but was not. For this reason, he could become a citizen through his mother’s naturalization alone. After this fact became known, however, ICE continued to detain him. Following an immigration court hearing, on July 9, 2003, ICE arrested him. An immigration judge declared him a U.S. citizen on December 5, 2003. ICE released him the same day but appealed the decision, and the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed because it said the government should have had more time to prepare its evidence for the citizenship hearing. On October 18, 2005, the IJ again found that he was a U.S. citizen through his mother. ICE again appealed, and again, the BIA reversed. The IJ again found he was a U.S. citizen, and the BIA reversed a third time. On March 2, 2005, Honolulu police arrested Ayala-Villanueva and discovered he had a warrant in Nevada transferred him to Nevada where ICE issued a detainer. On April 15, 2005, Nevada police transferred him to ICE until August 19, 2007. Altogether, ICE detained him for 1,053 days. On December 27, 2006, the IJ ordered Wilsonis’s removal based on the order of the BIA. He appealed, and the BIA upheld. He appealed to the Ninth Circuit, and it remanded the district court for an evidentiary review, and on August 23, 2011, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued him a certificate of citizenship. On October 19, 2011, ICE finally admitted that he was a citizen and released him.
141. Cesar Ramirez-Lopez, March 9, 2005 detainer, see details above.
142. Lawrence Rowe was born in Guyana and derived his U.S. citizenship from his mother’s naturalization. While he was serving a drug sentence in New York, ICE issued a detainer and initiated removal proceedings against him on February 28, 2005, despite his argument that he was a U.S. citizen. ICE contended that because he was a “legitimate” child of his father, his father also had to naturalize. He was ordered deported, but appealed. On June 29, 2006, Board of Immigration Appeals found him to be a U.S. citizen.
143. Rennison Castillo was born in Belize, first came to the US when he was six years old, and naturalized to become a U.S. citizen in 1998 during his 7‑year service in the U.S. Army from 1996 to 2003. In 2005, Castillo was jailed for violating a protection and harassment order. On September 21, 2005, ICE interviewed him and he told them that he was a naturalized U.S. citizen, and on September 23, 2005, it issued a detainer and a notice to appear in immigration court. On November 25, 2005, ICE took him into custody where he was questioned about his immigration status and eventually placed into deportation proceedings. Castillo repeatedly told ICE that he was a citizen and served in the US Army, even asking if he could just get his military card out of his vehicle to prove his story. Castillo’s case was first botched because his files listed multiple names and misspelled versions of his first and last name. However, ICE “had access to Mr. Castillo’s complete immigration history, his social security number, and his fingerprints, his date of birth, his parents’ names, and numerous other details, each of which independently would have revealed Mr. Castillo’s citizenship status.” At an immigration hearing on December 21, 2005, an immigration judge said, “You can’t just expect me to believe you” over ICE when the ICE attorney told him that he had checked the government databases and had not found his naturalization record. On January 24, 2006, the IJ ordered him removed from the country. He appealed. On June 29, 2006, ICE finally dropped removal proceedings. ICE detained him for 7 months at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. Castillo then sued DHS and was granted a settlement of $400,000 in 2011.
144. Elizabeth Hernandez-Carrillo was born in Mexico but derived United States citizenship from her father when he naturalized. In 2004, after serving a sentence for a marijuana offense, ICE issued a detainer, arrested her, and removed her to Mexico despite her insistence of U.S. citizenship. After returning to the United States, on February 8, 2017, ICE arrested her as part of a raid that included her husband. She told them she was a U.S. citizen, and after a month of detention, ICE released her because they believed her citizenship claim was “sufficient to merit release from custody during litigation.” In January 2020, her case was still pending according to her attorney Charles Kuck.
145. Ada Morales, July 2004 detainer, see details above.
146. George Ibarra, February 4, 2004 detainer, see details above.
147. Massimiliano Dellaguardia was born in Ethiopia and derived citizenship from his mother when she was naturalized in 1995. In July 1999, INS issued a detainer and charged him with being in a removable alien following a criminal conviction. He attempted to prove his U.S. citizenship, but INS denied his requests for certificate of citizenship, and on March 1, 2001, an immigration judge ordered him removed. He refused to show up for his deportation. On November 10, 2003, ICE issued a detainer and arrested Dellaguardia following an arrest by the Seattle Police Department. On March 30, 2004, ICE released him because Ethiopia wouldn’t issue him a passport because the part of Ethiopia he was born in is now part of Eritrea. ICE arrested him again on September 11, 2006 and released him again on October 19, 2006. It ended its removal proceedings on January 10, 2007.
148. Armando Garcia-Cabello was born in New Mexico. In June of 2003, he was arrested for multiple traffic violations in Johnson County, Kansas. At the county jail, he was interviewed by ICE and he made inconsistent statements regarding his citizenship. He initialed a form that said he was there illegally. On June 9, 2003, he was transferred to ICE when he first claimed to be a U.S. citizen. The arresting agents searched federal databases to see if they could corroborate his claim of citizenship, but they could not. He then accepted voluntary departure to Mexico. Armando tried to sue the United States over being detained, that they did not investigate his claim to citizenship well enough, and that he was wrongfully deported. The government admitted his U.S. citizenship, but the courts dismissed his lawsuit for damages.
149. German Fidel Cueto was born in Spain and naturalized to receive U.S. citizenship. On August 26, 2002, INS issued a detainer while Cueto was in federal prison, but the detainer listed Cueto’s nationality as “United States.” While still serving his criminal sentence, Cueto attempted to challenge the detainer. While in custody, he could not find his certificate of naturalization, but did have his U.S. passport. In 2005, ICE told him that “a United States passport… does not make you a United States citizen.” The Department of State verified that he had U.S. citizenship, and it had issued a U.S. passport on that basis. ICE still failed to release the detainer. Before executing the detainer, ICE finally canceled it on August 25, 2008—six years after issuance.
150. Antonio Gorsira was born in Guyana and derived citizenship from his mother’s naturalization. Gorsira was convicted of a crime on February 13, 2002. INS issued a detainer, and an immigration judge ordered him removed from the country. Gorsira claimed derivative citizenship from his mother and appealed but was denied because he did not appeal within the 1‑week deadline of his arrest. Gorsira’s father’s name is on the birth certificate, which is why the court initially found Gorsira’s birth was legitimate and required both parents’ naturalizations. However, pursuant Guyanese law, on February 16, 2005 the District of Connecticut found that his birth was out of legitimation and therefore that he qualified for derivative citizenship from his mother.
151. Robert Dominguez, September 1999 detainer, see details above.
152. Massimiliano Dellaguardia, July 1999 detainer, see details above.
153. Robert North was born in Panama and acquired U.S. citizenship from his U.S. citizen father who was employed by the U.S. government in Panama. On July 11, 1989, INS initiated removal proceedings against Robert while in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons in Maryland on a drug conviction. On November 27, 1989, an immigration judge dismissed the proceedings on the grounds that he had acquired U.S. citizenship. On February 9, 1999, INS issued a detainer to the Bureau of Prisons in Virginia. On November 1, 2000, the immigration judge terminated proceedings against him.
154. Ricardo Mauricio Garza-Castillo, April 15, 1999 detainer, see details above.
155. Johann Francis was born in Jamaica and derived his citizenship through his mother, who was naturalized when Johann was 14. He was sentenced to 1 year in jail after he got into a fight when he was 18. In 1999, INS issued a detainer and sent him to Eloy Detention Center in Arizona for 3 months. He was deported to Jamaica and since he was unable to obtain documents that proved his citizenship, he remained there for 10 years until December 24, 2009. He was eventually able to receive a letter from the U.S. consulate that confirmed his citizenship, which is how he was able to return to the United States.

The Chinese government’s crackdown on dissidents in Hong Kong is just another indication of that government’s rising totalitarianism. Vox’s Matt Yglesias wrote that the United States should let in any Hongkonger who wishes to leave – a proposal I agree with. However, the U.S. government is moving in the opposite direction. Not only has it virtually ended all immigration, including for those seeking refuge and asylum, but it will soon go further to limit the migration of Chinese students.

Senators Tom Cotton (R‑AR) and Marsha Blackburn (R‑TN) recently introduced the Secure Campus Act that “would prohibit Chinese nationals from receiving visas to the United States for graduate or post-graduate studies in STEM fields.” Their press release cites the single example of the arrest of Arkansas professor Simon Saw-Teong Ang for wire fraud, alleging that he failed to disclose ties to the Chinese government and Chinese firms when he applied for NASA grant money. The senators also write that “the Chinese Communist Party has long used American universities to conduct espionage on the United States.”

The Trump administration is expected to follow with an executive order to expel some Chinese students with ties to Chinese universities who are affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army (edit: Trump just signed an executive order doing just this). This will come on the heels of the Trump administration efforts that begun in June 2018 to restrict student visas for Chinese citizens studying in subjects with potential national security applications. The U.S. government imposed extra screening for students studying in fields related to the Chinese government’s Made in China 2025 plan and shortening the time period of visas related to aviation, robotics and advanced manufacturing from a maximum of five years to one year. The administration is edging toward a total ban on Chinese students.

The Chinese government and Chinese firms have engaged in industrial espionage and state-espionage in recent decades. There’s no doubt that some small number of foreign students have nefarious intent to steal valuable intellectual property from American firms and universities. But those firms and universities are the victims, and they think the benefits from welcoming Chinese students outweigh the costs. Many of them are strengthening security to prevent theft, but slamming the door shut is an extreme and destructive solution to a manageable problem.

The biggest challenge is getting universities to fully comply with the complex export controls that limit the sharing of potential national-security related advancements with countries that are potential adversaries of the United States – like China. The government’s focus on Chinese espionage, IP theft, and export of new inventions has led to some tragic career-ending prosecutions such as in the case of Xiaoxing Xi.

Xi was a Chinese-born American physics professor and former Chair of the Physics Department at Temple University. The government charged him with wire-fraud in May 2015, alleging that he sent designs for a pocket heater used in superconductor research to where? The DOJ dropped all charges against Xi after the co-inventor of the pocket heater showed that the designs Xi shared, as typical in academic collaboration, with Chinese researchers were not for a pocket heater or any other advanced technology. Temple University still placed Xi on administrative leave and he resigned his chairmanship position.

Undeterred by their embarrassment in the Xi case, the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched the China Initiative in 2018 to “identify and prosecute those engaged in economic espionage, trade secret theft, hacking and other economic crimes.” According to the DOJ, “about 80 percent of all economic espionage prosecutions … allege conduct that would benefit the Chinese state, and there is at least some nexus to China in around 60 percent of all trade secret theft cases.” We only have some of their China Initiative cases available, and a portion of them are troubling, but we the public needs to see all of them rather than a DOJ-selected list to evaluate how serious the threat is.

There are approximately 380,000 Chinese students studying in the United States out of the roughly 1.4 million foreign students here. About 171,000 of them were enrolled in science and engineering programs at U.S. universities. They are tightly monitored by both the government and universities. The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), which monitors foreign students studying in the United States, has already “mitigated previously identified national security gaps … and is continuing to enhance the system” according to testimony by Louis A. Rodi III, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting assistant director in charge of enforcing visa rules. Their enrollment and attendance at universities is known in real time by the government, and the students lose their visas immediately if they don’t comply – a system of forced-compliance virtually unique amongst visas.

The justifications for the DOJ Chinese Initiative are intended to protect American innovation. But stopping the flow of Chinese students to STEM fields, as the Secure Campus Act would do, would undermine U.S. innovation. Despite being 1.5 percent of the U.S. population, Chinese immigrants and their descendants account for almost 9 percent of patents filed in the United States and 8.2 percent in computers, 8 percent in electrical, and 7.2 percent in chemicals.

Even the FBI agrees. “Most foreign students, researchers, or professors studying or working in the United States are here for legitimate and proper reasons,” said one FBI report from 2011 on security in U.S. universities. “Only a very small percentage is actively working at the behest of another government or organization.” Another FBI report from 2020 said that “[t]he vast majority of the 1.4 million international scholars on U.S. campuses pose no threat to their host institutions, fellow classmates, or research fields.”

The leak of some intellectual property by a few Chinese students and researchers is worth the gargantuan economic benefits of their tremendous contributions to U.S. innovation – to say nothing of the non-Chinese who also sell IP to China or other governments. The U.S. government should continue to try and limit industrial espionage and state-espionage, but halting or severely restricting Chines migration is akin to removing part of one’s brain to remedy an allergy-induced headache.

Rather than reducing Chinese immigration to combat China, the United States should drastically liberalize immigration. For decades, the best minds in China have left for freer and greener pastures abroad. The Chinese government is desperate to have them return as part of their central economic plan of becoming a leader in science and technology by 2050, which is the justification or their Thousand Talents Program that incentivizes Chinese scientists to return (sometimes with stolen IP) to study in China, often with large bonuses.

The Chinese government is even attempting to send recruiters overseas to entice Chinese students to return to reverse the brain drain in China. In part due to their decades-long and brutal one-child policy, the Chinese population is aging more rapidly than our own. By 2045, about a third of China will be 60 or older compared to about 22 percent in the United States.

This represents a golden opportunity to drain the best minds from China that will undermine their government’s efforts to have Chinese students and scientists return, as well as worsen their demographics while bettering our own. Every Chinese national with a college degree should be able to get a work permit or green card without numerical cap. Those studying in the United States state should be welcomed, allowed, and even encouraged to stay.

Chinese institutions and the Thousand Talents Program provide foreign scientists with signing bonuses up to $151,000 and research stipends ranging from $453,000 to $755,000 for established scientists over the age of 40. Even with those enticements, 90 percent of Chinese STEM doctorate recipients were still in the United States a decade after completing their studies. All the U.S. government has to do to wipe out the Chinese government’s talent recruitment efforts and raise that percentage even more is allow them to come to study, work, and live here with a minimum of bureaucratic fuss and the removal of arbitrary visa restrictions.

Efforts by Tom Cotton and the Trump administration are inspired by legitimate national security considerations. They’re rightly worried about Chinese espionage, but their solutions will only strengthen the Chinese state. The example of the U.S. returning Chinese immigrant Qian Xuesen to China should provide a cautionary tale. Xuesen immigrated from China and earned his Ph.D. from Cal Tech in 1939. He was a pioneer in cybernetics, aerospace engineering, and physics. He was involved with the Manhattan Project and designing American rockets. Theodore von Karman, legendary aerospace engineer, mathematician, and physicist, pronounced Xuesen an “undisputed genius.”

During the Cold War, Xuesen was accused of being a Communist on flimsy evidence. He lost his security clearances and his career options limited. He decided to return to China and was detained by U.S. authorities for five years under house arrest after the government claimed that he was trying to smuggle out classified documents. Subsequent examination of the documents showed they contained no classified material. Eventually Xuesen was traded to China in exchange for downed American pilots.

In China, Xuesen helped lead the Chinese nuclear weapons program and their missile program, earning the moniker “Father of Chinese Rocketry.” Undersecretary of the Navy Dan A. Kimball, who knew Xuesen personally, said “It was the stupidest thing this country ever did. He was no more a Communist than I was, and we forced him to go.” How many other brilliant Chinese scientists like Xuesen will the U.S. government turn back or force to leave because of the fear of IP theft and espionage? While real concerns, the threat from espionage is trivial in comparison to the known cost of keeping thousands of Chinese scientists and engineers in China.

It’s no secret that many policymakers in the United States and the People’s Republic of China want a new Cold War. Trade restrictions, espionage, and military buildups in both countries are moving in that direction. Except for Xuesen, the United States government welcomed people fleeing Communist countries and reformed its entire refugee and asylum program to do so. The U.S. government likely reformed the entire immigration system in 1965 in response to the Cold War. The Communist countries had to impose draconian emigration restrictions to keep their people from fleeing. Many Chinese, including some of their top minds, would jump at the opportunity to study, work, and live in the United States. For the benefits of our own economy and national security as well as for the sake of Chinese citizens seeking freedom, we should welcome them rather than throw up new barriers.

President Trump will be considering recommendations from his administration this week on which immigration programs to cancel during the economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides. One program that immigration restrictionists in the administration will likely recommend cutting is the Summer Work and Travel Program (SWTP)—which is part of the J‑1 exchange visa program—because it allows foreigners to work in the United States.

Summer Work and Travel Program rules

On its face, President Trump should like the SWTP. It fits his brand of “merit-based” immigration. Participants must be college students at foreign universities, be proficient in English, and generally have job offers already lined up in the United States. They are ineligible for all means-tested federal public benefits. The program even has requirements that students not work for employers who will replace U.S. workers or not pay them as much as U.S. workers.

U.S. nonprofit organizations sponsor students and arrange their housing and employment. The flow chart below from the Government Accountability Office provides a useful explanation of the program’s operations. Sponsors must receive permission from the State Department to sponsor students. The sponsors recruit foreign students to join their program in exchange for fees and find employers to offer jobs to them. The State Department handles oversight through its Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Kentucky Consular Center, and embassies or consulates abroad.

Congress created the J visa category—of which the Summer Work and Travel Program is a part—in 1961 in the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act (Fulbright–Hays Act). The purpose of the legislation was “to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries by means of educational and cultural exchange” and by demonstrating “the achievements of the people of the United States and other nations, and the contributions being made toward a peaceful and more fruitful life for people throughout the world.”

Summer Work and Travel Program participation

The State Department has called the SWTP “a cornerstone of U.S. public diplomacy efforts for nearly 50 years.” Since 1987, more than 8.3 million people have received J‑1 exchange visitor visas—about 2.3 million of these visas have come under the Summer Work and Travel Program. The program peaked in 2008 with 152,726 participants. In 2011, the State Department introduced a program cap of 109,000—the number of participants that year—which it has maintained through 2020. Because it also stopped allowing any new sponsors, the number of total participants declined to less than 90,000 in 2013 before averaging about 105,000 in recent years.

With 7,001, Ireland was the most common country of origin for Summer Work and Travel Program participants in 2015—the only year for which that information is publicly available. The rest of the top 5 included Bulgaria, China, Romania, and Ukraine, each with more than 5,000.

In the most recent year available in 2018, the state with the most SWTP participants in absolute terms was New York with 6,950. Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Colorado, and California fill out the Top 5. These states represent 30 percent of the total SWTP participants in 2018.

Summer Work and Travel Employment

The original purpose of allowing employment under the cultural exchange program was that it allowed students from all backgrounds to visit the United States because a summer job could underwrite the cost of their time in the United States. The SWTP students generally work seasonal summer jobs in places like Ocean City in Maryland, Long Island in New York, and Mackinac Island in Michigan. The students work and experience normal U.S. life for the average college student on summer break, returning to their home countries with a generally positive experience.

In 2015, Disney was the largest SWTP employer with 2,355 workers. The other top 5 employers were Cedar Fair Parks, McDonald’s, Six Flags, and Xanterra Parks and Resorts. Figure 3 shows the distribution by employment sector. By far the largest employment sector was leisure and hospitality with 53,237 workers. Arts, entertainment, and recreation was second with 17,950.

Critics of the program contend that J‑1 visa holders increase unemployment among young U.S. workers, but they present little, if any, evidence beyond their mere presence. Figure 4 shows that only one other year had a lower youth unemployment rate than 2019 since the creation of the J‑1 visa program. From 1996 to 2019, the lowest unemployment rate on record was in 2019, despite the Summer Work and Travel Program increasing about fivefold from 22,000 in 1996 to about 105,000 last year. Obviously, the unemployment rate is much higher right now, but the cause of that unemployment is the response to the pandemic, not immigration. When the pandemic disappears, the unemployment rate will disappear along with it.

The fact is that SWTP workers support jobs for U.S. workers. Even an entirely one-sided anti-SWTP article based around a single anecdote relays how one SWTP worker at a restaurant in Maryland worked “back of the house jobs,” which supported U.S. workers who filled “server positions that came with better pay and tips.” Unfortunately, this disparity created resentment, but the vast majority of SWTP workers report positive experiences because they are happy to work with Americans in whatever capacity.

Many employers rely on J‑1 visas to support essential operations of their businesses. When the Trump administration suddenly increased J‑1 visa denials last year, some businesses in Ocean City, Maryland had cut their operations. “We reduced our hours which in exchange has reduced our business,” said Anna Dolle Bushnell, the co-owner of Dolle’s Candyland in Ocean City. “So May wasn’t so great. It could have been a fantastic month, but we just weren’t able to keep our stores open simply because we don’t have enough staff.”

A report funded by the SWTP sponsors calculated that the program contributes to the United States about $500 million annually. This seems like a reasonable estimate, if not actually a bit low today. It works out to about $4,800 per participant. Assuming that the average worker works a normal workday for 3 months, that would be just $9.25 per hour, lower than many states minimum wages.

Rights Under the Summer Work and Travel Program

Union-funded organizations are attempting to undermine the SWTP because the foreign students don’t stay long enough to join a union and pay union dues. They fund organizations like the National Guestworker Alliance (NGA) to turn foreign students against their employers by promising them that they can receive more money from lawsuits and formal complaints. In the most popular story along these lines, NGA recruited a dozen of 385 students working at a Hershey’s packing plant in Pennsylvania to join a 2011 complaint alleging workplace violations including “heavy lifting” and “low” wages—despite the wages being above the state minimum wage.

In this supposedly “egregious” case cited in almost every piece of anti-SWTP propaganda, NGA managed to recruit only 3 percent of Hershey’s students, complaining only days before leaving the country on the promise of receiving additional compensation. But the complaint had no merit. As one student put it in a statement to the State Department, “I disagree with the actions of these students. We knew everything beforehand. The job offer and description were clearly written… We have the right to choose a job, and if they did not like it, [they] should have chosen something else.”

In fact, the sponsor did find new jobs for the ten students who did decide to leave the Hershey jobs and cooperated with its job search. Another student at the plant said she was “ashamed” of the protesting students. Indeed, the State Department’s investigators found several students who came to the Hershey plant a second time the following year, despite the supposedly inhumane conditions.

Under the SWTP rules, workers can leave their jobs or request new ones at any time. This is quite different from temporary worker programs that have rules preventing the easy transition between jobs. In 2011, the State Department imposed new detailed rules that exclude many job opportunities from the program including hazardous jobs.

Conclusion

In 2011, responding to the Hershey controversy, the State Department suspended all growth in the program, creating a de facto cap of 109,000. On March 19, 2020, the State Department suspended the program entirely for 60 days. Unfortunately, this cap and suspension could provide bases for the Trump administration to further restrict the program. There is absolutely no reason during the economic recovery. The U.S. unemployment situation will resolve itself naturally when the pandemic subsides. Both Americans and foreign workers are sidelined now, but the recovery should not be injured by pointless visa restrictions.

President Trump is reportedly considering a ban on H‑2B temporary workers that a few Republican senators proposed this month. Companies hire H‑2B workers in seasonal jobs outside of traditional farms, such as landscaping, meat packing, and seafood processing. The plan is supposed to “save” jobs for U.S. workers. Yet this justification holds no water: unemployed Americans already reject 100 percent of jobs for which H‑2Bs are hired.

H‑2B regulations require that employers recruit U.S. workers before they can hire any foreign workers. Employers must do the following:

• Not lay off any qualified U.S. worker for 120 days before the job start date;
• Post a notice of the job’s availability for all current U.S. employees;
• Contact all its former U.S. workers in the prior year and solicit their return to the job;
• Have the State Workforce Agency post the job on the state’s electronic job registry for unemployed U.S. workers for about 60 days; and
• Recruit and accept all qualified U.S. workers interested in the position until three weeks prior to the job start date.

In other words, the H‑2B program already has a built-in unemployment adjustment. When unemployment increases, H‑2B approvals automatically fall, and not just because of a government mandate, but also because employers won’t hire anyone for jobs that aren’t in demand right now. There aren’t too many carnivals in operation right now, so that industry will not be requesting workers this year. Figure 1 shows how during the last spike in unemployment, the number of H‑2B requests and approvals fell quite significantly.

But Figure 1 shows that unemployed Americans won’t accept certain H‑2B positions even when unemployment is high. Landscaping, forestry, meat and poultry processing, and certain construction jobs are so physically demanding that Americans would simply prefer unemployment to taking them. In many cases—such as in forestry—the jobs require constant time apart from family and friends. It is not reasonable to expect that temporarily furloughed Americans will ditch inflated unemployment benefits for dangerous and physically taxing jobs away from their families.

These recruitment and acceptance requirements come on top of onerous wage and hour regulations that require employers to pay inflated wages and benefits to both the new hire and all existing similar employees. The H‑2B minimum wage requirements exceeded every state’s minimum wage requirement by an average of 60 percent last year.

During the economic recovery, the goal should be to help businesses get back to the pre-pandemic status quo as quickly as possible. Forcibly keeping jobs open hinders that goal and will delay the recovery, hurting U.S. workers elsewhere in the economy. The government should stop trying to micromanage the labor force and focus on addressing the actual cause of the unemployment crisis: the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Trump administration reportedly is considering a plan this week to restrict or ban foreign students from working after graduation from U.S. universities. Under Optional Practical Training (OPT), foreign students can study for at least one year after receiving their degrees. Foreign students in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math fields can extend OPT for another two years.

The plan is supposedly to benefit unemployed Americans—almost none of whom work in the relevant fields—after states reopen for business. The program is the main on-ramp for American companies to recruit and retain foreign talent in the United States. Gutting it would harm U.S. workers by undermining the very companies that would employ them.

What is the OPT?

The U.S. government has allowed foreign students to “engage in some version of OPT during their studies or on a temporary basis after the completion of their studies” since 1947. The core component of OPT is that it is “optional” or recommended rather than required by the school to graduate. The original regulation that created OPT allowed foreign student to seek jobs “where employment for practical training is required or recommended by the school.”

While it did not explicitly discuss the ability to work after graduation, immigration or other court decisions as well as subsequent regulations make it clear that this was also permitted and happening. In 1991, the government split OPT into pre-completion and post-completion authorization and permitted only a single year of post-completion OPT “directly related to his or her area of studies.”

What is STEM OPT?

In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) permitted extensions of OPT for Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math (STEM) graduates of U.S. universities for up to 17 months because the “ability of U.S. high-tech employers to retain skilled technical workers, rather than losing such workers to foreign business, is an important economic interest for the United States.” In 2016, DHS extended the period to 24 months, allowing for a 3‑year period of total post-graduation employment. The 2016 rule requires employers hiring a worker on a STEM OPT extension to attest that the worker is not replacing a U.S. worker and will receive similar pay to the employer’s similarly situated U.S. workers. DHS can conduct an on-site audit to review employer records to confirm the accuracy of these attestations.

How many foreign students apply for OPT?

In fiscal year 2019, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approved 223,284 requests for Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) for all types of OPT—the highest number ever. Nearly all approvals were for post-graduate OPT—either regular OPT (152,029) or STEM (69,353). Figure 1 shows that the numbers of approved EADs has nearly tripled from less than 80,000 in 2003 to more than 223,000 in 2019—nearly all of this growth occurred during the Obama administration from FY 2009 to partway through FY 2017. STEM OPT accounts for almost half the growth.

How many OPT recipients are employed?

Not all OPT recipients find jobs, but a much greater share are finding them than in the recent past. Unfortunately, an exact comparison between the share with and without jobs is not available, but Figure 2 compares OPT approvals to OPT participants with jobs. In 2007, there were more than 3 approvals for each participant with a job. By 2018, the ratio was nearly 1:1. Overall, 200,162 OPT participants had jobs in 2018.

What countries do OPT participants come from?

In 2018, two thirds of OPT participants came from India and China, according to the Institute of International Education (IIE). IIE—with the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of State—conducts a survey of international students including those with OPT. It shows that an astounding 42 percent of Indian international students are currently enrolled in OPT (Figure 3). That share is well over double the rest of the world. The difference can be partly attributed to the difficulties that Indians have obtaining employment‐​based green cards compared to the rest of the world. They end up using OPT to maintain status in the United States, while other nationalities can simply adjust to permanent residence.

IIE doesn’t report data specifically on STEM OPT, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement data show that again, India represents 59 percent of all STEM OPT participants, and 40 percent of Indian STEM students are involved in OPT—by far the highest share of any nationality with more than 2 participants. It also shows that the United States risks losing nearly half a million STEM students if the government rescinded OPT.

What companies employ OPT participants?

Table 2 displays the top 100 companies for OPT hires in 2018 and 2017 as well as the entire period from 2003 to 2018. The largest OPT employer with 2,911 OPT employees was Amazon, which makes most of its hires under the STEM OPT program. Other technology companies—Integra, Intel, Google, and Microsoft—fill out the top 5 with more than 1,000 employees each. The Top 100 companies make 18 percent of OPT hires. Under the H‑1B program, the Top 100 employers make 35 percent of H‑1B hires. This disparity is compatible with previous research concluding that OPT is more common among startups than the more expensive, complex, and bureaucratic H‑1B program.

What industries do OPT participants work in?

While exact statistics for the entire OPT population is unavailable, the Department of Labor reports that 30 percent of student visa holders with college degrees sponsored by employers for permanent residence (mainly OPT participants) in FY 2019 were offered jobs in professional, scientific, or technical services, such as custom computer programming, computer systems design, and research and development into biotechnology. Another 24 percent were employed in the manufacturing sector, mainly semiconductors and other electronic components (Table 3).

What occupations do OPT participants work in?

Again, exact statistics for the entire OPT population is unavailable, but the Department of Labor reports that 46 percent of student visa holders with a college degree or above sponsored by employers for permanent residence were offered computer and math jobs (Table 4), mainly software developers. Another 20 percent were in architecture and engineering (mainly non-computer electronics engineers) followed by almost 12 percent in business and finance with market research analysts and accountants being the most common.

How has COVID-19 affected OPT occupations?

As Stuart Anderson first noticed, the computer jobs that are the most common jobs among OPT students have remained entirely unscathed by the recent economic downturn. The unemployment rate for computer had actually declined since January (Figure 4). Anderson comments that this positive employment situation “makes citing unemployment in these occupations as a reason for new restrictions on H‑1B visas and international students on OPT more dubious.” The downward trend continued in May.

What are the wages of OPT workers?

Again, exact figures for the entire OPT population are not available, but the Department of Labor reports that college graduates in student visa status who were sponsored by employers for permanent residence averaged a wage offer of $86,908 in FY 2019. That was significantly higher than the average wage for all U.S. workers that year (Figure 5). These wages imply that if OPT were implemented, it would contract the economy by more than $17.4 billion annually.

What does research say about OPT?

Business Roundtable and the Interindustry Forecasting Project at the University of Maryland found that “scaling back OPT would cause the unemployment rate to rise 0.15 percentage points by 2028.” In 2019, economist Madeline Zavodny found that “A larger number of foreign students approved for OPT, relative to the number of U.S. workers, is associated with a lower unemployment rate among those U.S. workers.” In March 2019, Jeremy Neufeld used OPT data to conclude that “higher levels of OPT participants in a region lead to increased innovation in that region, as measured by the number of patents, higher average earnings among the college educated. In addition, it finds no evidence of adverse effects on average earnings, unemployment, or labor force participation.”

Stuart Anderson has also found that 39 percent of Nobel Prizes in chemistry, medicine, and physics since 2000 have been immigrants to the United States. International students dominate the STEM majors. NFAP has also found that in 2015, more than three quarters of the graduate students in electrical engineering, petroleum engineering, computer science, and industrial engineering were international students. A majority of the graduate students in pharmaceutical sciences and chemical engineering—two majors of particular interest today—were also foreign-born. In 2018, NFAP found that nearly a quarter of American startups valued at $1 billion or more had a founder who entered the Untied States as an international student, which had created 1,200 jobs per company. Michelle Zatlyn, co-founder of Cloudflare, and Ashifi Gogo, founder of Sproxil, both used OPT to launch their businesses.

In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) when it launched STEM OPT concluded that the expansion was a national security necessity. “With their large and growing populations of STEM-graduate scientists, high-tech industries in [Russia, China, and India] and others in the OECD now compete much more effectively against the U.S. high technology industry.” It notes that China and India had 31 percent of global R&D staff up from 3.2 percent in 1990. It would be strange for the department to reverse itself completely a decade later, even as the underlying trends continue.

-Post updated 6/17/2020 to provide more details about the OPT program.