Here is the link to my Tuesday night piece on the case of Pedro Guzman, wrongly deported from the L.A. county jails to Tijuana and found some 89 days later in Calexico, California. I saw Pedro's mother Maria Tuesday and his brother Michael after yesterday's press conference. They seemed more happy than shocked, but definitely a mix of the two:
The next day, Guzman was released from the Antelope Valley courthouse. A photograph distributed at the news conference showed a thin, bushy-haired Guzman hunched over with a shirt wrapped around his shoulders, but clearly back home under the hot Lancaster sun. Carbajal and Michael said Pedro told them only snippets of his ordeal in Tijuana, a place he had not visited since he was a teenager. He said he first tried to cross back home through San Ysidro, but was repeatedly turned away by U.S. border agents and told, "Stop playing games." He told his family he then walked 100 miles east to reach the border crossing at Mexicali. He said he ate out of garbage cans, bathed in canals, and avoided people and police. "Whatever we did get out of him, we couldn’t understand it," Michael said of his first conversation with Pedro. "That's not my brother, to a certain point."
More here. See previous post for more.
*** WEDNESDAY ADD: I should also mention, as some other outlets have noted, that the ACLU said an immigration hold was put on Pedro when he was initially found. Outrageous, it would seem, considering the family had been told an alert was put out to federal agents about the error. This is difficult to verify however because ICE is not talking about the case, citing the lawsuit, and besides, check out what they told me:
But the federal government did not relent on the position it has held since the story broke, that Guzman was deported lawfully. "We believe that, yes," said ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley, adding via e-mail: "ICE recognizes the important responsibility of enforcing our nation’s immigration laws and carries out its mission judiciously, fairly, and appropriately."
See this related release from the ACLU from July 31: "Judge Finds Widespread Abuses in Immigration Detention." Let's hope Guzman rests up, recovers, and that the media glare keeps away for a bit. The remaining questions should eventually be answered.