Skatin, Iowa – Days after the aggressor bullet was torn through two limbs, Felipe de Jesus Hernandez Marcelo stumbled from the hospital on crutches.
Hernandez had almost died in the early morning from June 21 when, the police say, a troubled young man who shot him during a robbery in two muscles, Iowa. The rapid response to the emergency saved his life, but the shooting left the 28 -year -old wounded, as he traveled a bullet through his arm and leg.
The police had seized the car that Hernandez was driving when he was shot and reached $ 462 money that they had been fired as a guide. A friend took him to the police station to ask for his luggage on June 24 – he does not know that the visit could distinguish the last time he enjoyed freedom in the United States.
Hernandez is one of the increasing number of crime victims and relatives who were arrested and detained indefinitely pending the removal procedures during the Trump administration campaign against illegal immigration.
In January, the application of immigration and customs canceled a policy that protects many victims from detention and removal. The number of people applying for visas has decreased to allow some victims and their families to stay in the country since then. Others are held as they pass the lengthy serving process. Among the detainees, many eligible people were announced to release under the change of another ICE policy.
Critics say that the result is not only harsh for the victims and their families, but also hurts public safety by making those in the United States illegal illegal to report crimes and cooperate with the police.
“This type of things is now the new natural. This scenario occurs every day in every city,” said Dan Kawaliski, a retired lawyer who has been an expert in immigration law for decades. “Any contact with any level or type of law enforcement in the state, federal, civil or criminal, exposes you to the risk of detention by ICE.”
ICE has not returned the messages that seek to get a comment. Its new policy is cited by an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, entitled “Protecting the American People from the invasion”, which calls for “enforcing overall and effective laws” of immigration laws.
Born in Mexico, who illegally entered the United States, Hernandez was a federal and a half months ago since his visit to the police station. The police arrested him based on an old order for his failure to pay a traffic ticket, and he was handed over to the detention of ice within hours.
Hernandez was far from his 9 -year -old son, and he was unable to attend the decisive medical dates to recover from his wounds, and he was unable to work in the construction job that paid his family bills.
He said that he was deprived of medicine for the first five days, as he suffered from severe pain.
Hernandez remembers this month in the court’s certificate, before a federal judge decided that “I was closed in one cell for several days. I felt as if it were forever.”
It was four in the morning on June 21, when Hernandez cried out to help in the center of Mosatin, a city with 24,000 along the Mississippi River where he had lived with relatives since his arrival in the United States in 2021.
The witnesses saw Hernandez behind the wheel in the Volkswagen Jetta, which was struggling to transfer what happened to them in the Spanish language. A 911 woman called, saying she believed that he was stabbed in the leg.
The officers arrived from the nearby police station in minutes, and they found the blood flowing from the internal thigh of the Henandez and gathered on the seat. One of them wrapped a tour about the wound to try to stop blood, as Hernandez looked closed and drifted into consciousness and exit.
Investigators learned that he was not stabbed, but he fired with a bullet traveled through his left wrist and right thigh before leaving the driver’s seat.
An ambulance was taken to the emergency room in the nearby hospital, where the doctors concluded that he needed to transfer it 40 miles for advanced treatment at the Iowa University Hospital.
There, doctors performed surgery to remove bullets and bones and gave him blood transfusion. His lawyer says that these interventions saved Hernandez’s life, but she left him with him with a $ 27,000 hospital bill.
Friends were shocked by the attack, saying that Hernandez was a hard factor to avoid drugs and alcohol. He has been out of trouble in more than four years in two enchants except for one: he was withdrawn and tickets several times to lead without a license.
When Hernandez arrived at the police station in search of his property, the investigators were still searching for the suspects involved in the attempt to theft and shoot.
Police told Hernandez that his car and his money were in a detained place and could not get it. Hernandez said that one of the officers told him to wait during the research of his criminal history. Tell them about tickets.
Police discovered that Hernandez had a 7 -month -old seat, which stems from his failure to pay a $ 250 ticket to lead with a suspended license in November 2024. A judge issued an order after last December after Hernandez did not show a session he said he did not know.
A few months ago, Anthony Police Commander Anthony Case confirmed the city, where nearly one in five residents of Spanish origin will not inquire about his officers about the state of immigration. He then insisted that “any resident is a victim or a witness of a crime that should not be afraid of contacting our administration,” and promised that the officers would only work with federal immigration authorities in cases related to violent criminals.
In an interview, the president said that his ministry had no choice but to arrest Hernandez and transfer him to the prison of Muscatin, which is run by Sharif’s office and has long been doubled as an ice facility. The Ice said that Hernandez was custody after hours awaiting removal procedures.
The president said: “If you are arrested because of a local crime and you are illegal, they will call the ice in prison and this is what is being dealt with,” adding that he supported politics.
Hernandez has been detained in prison since then, where he walks with a lame, suffers from frequent pain and a leg wound that continues to reopen it.
He witnessed that he was initially rejected by the prescribed medicine and that the prison officer told him only five days after the detention that he had to fill a model in order to see a nurse. He said he had received intermittent pain drugs since then.
His lawyer Emily Ribelki said that Hernandez was unable to attend the dates of the shock clinic and do not receive any physical rehabilitation services.
She wrote in a recent file of the court looking for his release in Bond: “The opportunities for the petition in restoring the natural use of his leg diminishing every day that passes and is limited to imprisonment for the province of Musakin.”
Because of a misunderstanding with an ice officer, Hernandez was not allowed to attend a hearing in the videos of the Immigration Court on July 24. That session was renovated three weeks after the Immigration Judge with ICE was that he was subject to mandatory detention and unimportant to obtain Bond.
Hernandez said his mother takes care of his 9 -year -old son and that he was able to speak to the boy only twice.
Hernandez’s mother, Guadalobi Hernandez Marcelo, said that she had not visited her son in prison because she was afraid of the authorities. She said that her grandson is sad because he feels that his father abandoned him. The family got loans to pay its bills.
“I just feel what is happening to my son is very fair,” she said. “They keep him locked up as we cannot go and visit him. We feel that we have all separated.”
Hernandez admitted that he was not at first in a site and the shooting conditions because he did not want the family to know the embarrassing details, according to the police.
Investigators obtained messages on social media that turned out to have been in contact with a 20 -year -old woman, Kimber Kalinberger, after she asked for money and food at the Facebook Facebook Forum.
Klnberger later told the police that she had falsely told Hernandez that she would have sex with him in exchange for money in a plot to prepare to steal her boyfriend. She said the plan was for her 18 -year -old friend Justin Bass, to scare Hernandez with a pistol to get money but not to shoot him.
After Hernandez withdrew to meet her in an alley in a quiet neighborhood, he refused to give money to Callinberger. Police says Bass shot him, and took off. Hernandez led the wounded for several blocs before the witnesses were asked to help.
Investigators say that their suspects were arrested on July 2 after Bass died in an overdose of drugs.
Kalinberger acknowledged that he was guilty of conspiracy to commit a coercive felony and prostitution under the guilt acknowledgment agreement that could save its time in prison. Bass is waiting for the trial for theft of the first degree and other charges.
Hernandez is one of the thousands of immigrants who are likely to have been arrested by ICE under other departments, not to mention keeping them without the chance to publish bonds.
In January, ICE canceled the policy of the agents to avoid detention and seek to remove immigrants who were victims of crimes. He protected those who carry the so -called visas that allow crime victims and human trafficking and their relatives to stay in the country. Protection extended to those who applied to obtain such visas and were waiting for decisions, which may take years for treatment.
Hernandez is seeking to apply for the U visa, and it seems eligible as a victim of criminal assault and the main witness against the two accused in the attack. However, the Prosecutor of the Province of Meskatin Jim Barry has not yet believed his eligibility, according to Hernandez’s lawyer. Bari did not respond to the messages.
Biden’s reign policy also called for ice agents to search for signs, and immigrants have been victims, and to consider that a “positive estimated factor” when determining whether they will detain them. The goal was to avoid inhibiting migrant victims from cooperating with the police in reporting and solving crimes.
But some conservatives have argued that abuse alone should not allow those in the country illegally to stay.
The new policy of ICE agents allows the detention of crime victims, including U and T visa holders, as long as they are checking the police “to ensure criminal investigation and other implementation procedures will not be hacked.” The agents are not required to search for any evidence of abuse.
The number of U -visas requests decreased by nearly half in the quarter that ended in March, which included the first and a half months of the second Trump administration, according to data from American citizenship and immigration services.
Immigration lawyer Bethani Hoffman said that the victims are concerned that the demand could put them on the government radar. She said that one of her clients, whose wife was a victim of kidnapping, was arrested by ICE when he appeared at a date to fingerprint as part of the U.
“I have been exercising for 17 years and I have not seen it before,” she said, adding that the man had no criminal history, but he was subject to the 10 -year -old removal.
The multiplication of the effect is another new practice in which the ice and immigration judges demand that no person entered the country without permission.
Over the past thirty years, Immigration lawyers say that many of these detainees have been issuing awaiting removal procedures pending not being considered a threat to flying or a danger to society. With a fixed function, local relatives and less criminal history, Hernandez will be a major candidate for his release.
In a decision on September 5, the Immigration Calls applied to the new ICE position that all individuals who crossed the border without permission are not qualified to obtain bonds, regardless of the period in the country.
Many federal judges have rejected this argument. The US province in the United States, Rebeca Judgami Ebinger, became the newer Iowa on September 10, and issued that Hernandez was not subject to mandatory detention. The immigration authorities ordered the provision of Hernandez with a Bond hearing within seven days, saying that his detention caused “irreplaceable damage.” A session is scheduled for Wednesday.
At the end of his testimony on September 5, Hernandez appealed to the judge to protect his family from revenge, saying that they had not made any mistake.
In reference to Mexico, he said: “I came from a country where the use of power is misused, and people use power to harm people. I don’t want to happen.”