Community rallies around LA teen detained by Ice while walking dog | US immigration

A community in southern California calls for the release of a high school student that US immigration agents arrested earlier this month while walking his dog.

Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz was supposed to start his last year of high school at Reseda Charter secondary school this month. But only a few days after his 18th birthday, masked ice agents arrested him while walking his dog in the Los Angeles district of Van Nuys in what his family described as an abduction.

The agents allowed his dog to detach themselves and treated Guerrero-Cruz as a criminal and joked the arrested before, his family said in a gofundme.

“He is more than a simple student – he is a devoted son, an attentive brother, a faithful friend and a precious member of our community,” wrote the family, adding that he helps take care of his young brothers. “He is a good student, with a kind heart, who has always intensified his family.”

Educators and defenders organized a rally to draw attention to the detention of Guerrero-Cruz, demand his release and call to responses from local officials, such as the Superintendent of the Unified School District of Los Angeles, on the unmarked vehicle and the top, masked the men who took him on the morning of August 8.

“How can one of us close our eyes to a cruel and unfair treatment that will happen right before us? Benjamin is important; his rights count,” said Valerie, one of the neighbors of Guerrero-Cruz, who saw the teenager in the unmarked truck before his detention, said on Tuesday’s press conference.

She told the crowd of downtown Los Angeles that she walked her dog when she had seen an unmarked SUV and several men who wore tactical vests and were completely masked or partially masked. They held the leash of Guerrero-Cruz’s dog, but shortly after Valerie approached one of the men who discouraged the dog’s leash and let her run away, she said.

Two of Guerrero-Cruz teachers also spoke during the rally and spoke of the campaign and the determination of the 18-year-old woman to graduate, despite the fact that recently in the United States.

“One of ours, Benjamin, a child who sat in our classrooms who dreamed of his dreams under our watch, was kidnapped by ice,” said Claudia Rojas, who taught Guerrero-Cruz shortly after his arrival in the United States.

“It is not only his fight-it is our fight. When a student is taken, all the students feel fear. When we remain silent, we allow permission to the next child to disappear,” she said.

Another of his former teachers, Liz Becerra, visited Guerrero-Cruz, in an ice treatment center in Adelanto, an hour and a half north of Los Angeles. She declared to the rally that Guerrero-Cruz had relayed a heartbreaking story to be surrounded by masked men by walking her dog, given to federal agents, then brought to the metropolitan detention center in the city center of Los Angeles. He was not allowed to shower or brush his teeth for a week, said Becerra.

Now he is in Adelanto, where he told Becerra that he was in a small cell with about two dozen other men with little access to food and water.

“He wants to graduate. He arrived so far according to his will and his dream, and that is removed from him,” said Becerra. “He is in detention; He should be in a classroom with us. ”

The arrest comes when Donald Trump’s repression against immigrants continues to take place in southern California, where thousands of people were arrested this summer at workplaces, in stores and near schools.

Los Angeles Unified School District, which has nearly 800 schools across the county, has adopted new strategies to protect students and “ensure that schools remain safe and support spaces for all children and families – regardless of immigration status”.

“Schools are safe spaces,” said Alberto M Carvalho, Superintendent Lausd, in a press release. “The application of immigration near schools disrupts learning and creates anxiety which can last far beyond the school day.”

Carvalho said he was in communication with Guerrero-Cruz’s mother, who alleged that the boy was detained with dozens of men, receiving water only once a day and insufficient food, in a space that does not have enough room for everyone to sit or lie at the same time.

His sudden arrest aroused indignation in his community. The football compatriots said it was “heartbreaking to see him remove us like that, and we will really miss the player not only, but the person he was”.

The Ministry of Internal Security said in a statement that Guerrero-Cruz was detained while waiting for his “dismissal” from the United States.

“Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz, an illegal foreigner in Chile, has exceeded his visa over two years old, abusing the Visa renunciation program in which he entered the United States, which forced him to leave the United States on March 15, 2023,” said the agency.