An L.A. man was detained in an immigration raid. No one knows where he is
WASHINGTON- Nobody seems to know what happened to Vicente Ventura Aguilar.
A witness told his brother and his attorneys that the 44-year-old Mexican immigrant, who does not have legal immigration status, was arrested by immigration authorities Oct. 7 in South Los Angeles and suffered a medical emergency.
But more than six weeks have passed since then and Ventura Aguilar’s family has still not heard from him.
The Department of Homeland Security said 73 people from Mexico were arrested in the Los Angeles area between October 7 and 8.
“None of them were Ventura Aguilar,” said Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for public affairs.
“For the record, illegal aliens in detention have access to phones to contact family members and lawyers,” she added.
McLaughlin did not respond to questions about what the agency did to determine whether Ventura Aguilar had ever been in its custody, such as checking for anyone with the same date of birth, variations of their name or identifying detainees who received medical treatment near the California border around October 8.
Lindsay Toczylowski, co-founder of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center which represents Ventura Aguilar’s family, said DHS never responded to her inquiries about him.
The family of Vicente Ventura Aguilar, 44, says he has been missing since Oct. 7, when a friend saw him arrested by federal immigration agents in Los Angeles. Homeland Security officials say he was never in their custody.
(Family of Vicente Ventura Aguilar)
“There’s only one agency that has the answers,” she said. “Their refusal to provide answers to this family, their refusal to provide answers to their lawyers, speaks volumes about the lack of care and the cruelty of the moment right now for DHS. »
His family and lawyers checked with local hospitals and the Mexican consulate, without success. They sought help from the office of Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles), whose staff called the medical examiner’s offices in Los Angeles and San Diego counties. No one matched his name or description either.
The Los Angeles Police Department also told Kamlager-Dove’s office that he was not part of their system. Her brother, Felipe Aguilar, said the family filed a missing person’s report with the LAPD on Nov. 7.
“We are sad and worried,” said Felipe Aguilar. “He’s my brother and we miss him here at home. He’s a very good person. We just hope to God that he’s alive.”
Felipe Aguilar said his brother, who has lived in the United States for about 17 years, left home around 8:15 a.m. Oct. 7 to take the bus to an interview for a sanitation job when he ran into friends on the corner of a local liquor store. He had his phone but left his wallet at home.
One of these friends told Felipe Aguilar and his lawyers that he and Ventura Aguilar were arrested by immigration agents and then detained at B-18, a temporary detention center located in the federal building in downtown Los Angeles.
The friend was deported the next day to Tijuana. He spoke to the family in a phone call from Mexico.
B-18 detainees have limited access to telephones and lawyers. Immigrants generally do not appear in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s online tracking system until they arrive at a long-term detention center.
According to Felipe Aguilar and Toczylowski, the friend said Ventura Aguilar began shaking, lost consciousness and fell to the ground while he was chained up on October 8 at a facility near the border. The impact caused his face to bleed.
The friend said facility staff called an ambulance and moved the other inmates to another room. Toczylowski said that was the last time anyone saw Ventura Aguilar.
She said the rapid turnaround between Ventura Aguilar’s arrest and his disappearance is emblematic of what she sees as a widespread lack of due process for people in government custody under the Trump administration and shows that “we don’t know who is being removed from the United States.”
Felipe Aguilar said he called his brother’s cell phone after hearing about the arrests, but the call went straight to voicemail.
Felipe Aguilar said that although his brother is generally healthy, he saw a cardiologist a few years ago for chest pain. He was taking prescribed medication and his condition had improved.
His family and lawyers have said Ventura Aguilar may have given a false name to immigration agents when he was arrested. Some detainees offer the wrong name or pseudonym, which would explain why it never appeared in Homeland Security files. Toczylowski said federal agents sometimes misspell the name of the person they take into custody.
Vicente Ventura Aguilar, missing since October 7, had lived in the United States for 17 years, his family said.
(Family of Vicente Ventura Aguilar)
But she said the agency would have to make a significant effort to search for him, such as using biometric data or his photo.
“To me, this is another symptom of the chaos of the immigration enforcement system as it occurs now,” she said of problems with accurately identifying detainees. “And that’s what happens when you indiscriminately racially profile, pick them up off the street and detain them in substandard conditions, and then deport people without due process. Mistakes are made. Right now, what we want to know is what mistakes were made here, and where is Vicente now?”
Surveillance footage from a nearby business reviewed by MS NOW shows Ventura Aguilar on the sidewalk five minutes before masked officers began making arrests in South Los Angeles. The footage does not show him being arrested, but two witnesses told the outlet they saw officers handcuff Ventura Aguilar and place him in a van.
In a letter sent to DHS leaders on Friday, Kamlager-Dove asked what steps DHS had taken to determine whether anyone matching Ventura Aguilar’s identifiers had been arrested last month and whether the agency had documented any medical events or hospital transports involving people taken into custody around October 7 and 8.
“Given the length of time since Mr. Ventura Aguilar’s disappearance and the credible concern that he may have been misidentified, injured, or missing during the enforcement action, I urgently request that DHS and ICE conduct an immediate and comprehensive review” by Nov. 29, Kamlager-Dove wrote in her letter.
Kamlager-Dove said her most common immigration requests from constituents are for help with visas and passports.
“Never in all my years did I expect to get a call about someone having completely disappeared off the face of the earth, nor did I ever think that I would find myself not only calling ICE and Border Patrol, but also checking hospitals, LAPD and morgues to find a constituent,” she said. “It’s horrible and it’s completely dystopian.”
She said Los Angeles families deserve answers and need to know if something similar could happen to them.
“Who else is missing?” she said.
