Man who had lived in U.S. since 1963 was deported, locked up for 3 years then released.




Victor Mendoza Medina is back in New York City six weeks after immigration-enforcement officers gave the Bolivian immigrant some surprising news — after more than three years locked up in a detention facility in Eloy, Ariz., he was being released.
He still cannot talk about the moment immigration officers told him to pack up his belongings without choking up.
"Believe me," Medina said, his voice cracking and then a long pause. "I actually cried. Being released after so long. I actually cried. ... I was so happy."
Others weren't.
Medina, now 69, has come to symbolize the political furor generated with the sudden release in February of more than 2,200 immigration detainees nationally. He was the only detainee released in Arizona classified as Level 1, the most serious aggravated felon.
Critics, including Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, have blasted Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials for releasing the detainees, especially those convicted of crimes, saying they pose a risk to public safety.
Medina was classified as a Level 1 offender, the most serious level. That classification stemmed from misdemeanor drug-possession offenses.
Within hours of his release, he was on a Greyhound bus to New York City, where he had lived for 45 years until he was deported to Bolivia in 2008.
In all, Immigration and Customs Enforcement released 629 immigration detainees who previously had been convicted of crimes. Eight of the 629 were Level 1 criminal offenders, but at least four of those were later taken back into custody, leaving only Medina and three other Level 1 offenders still free.
During two heated congressional hearings in March, Republican lawmakers lambasted ICE officials for releasing the detainees, especially the Level 1 offenders.
Director John Morton defended the release, saying the move was done to prevent cuts to critical investigative operations in the face of $300 million in automatic budget cuts.


One case, singled out
Morton singled out one case as an example of why the release of certain Level 1 offenders was justified. Without mentioning the immigrant by name, Morton noted his multiple drug and theft convictions but pointed out that he was 68 years old, had been a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. for more than 40 years, and an immigration judge had determined he was "not a danger to the community."
That immigrant was Medina.
By matching details of the immigrant's case provided by ICE with information provided by immigration lawyers familiar with the case, The Arizona Republicwas able to determine his identity. Then, with the help of Medina's immigration lawyers, The Republictracked him to New York, where he agreed to be interviewed by phone.
Over the course of 90 minutes, Medina described a saga that spanned five decades, starting with his immigration to the U.S. as a teenager; his subsequent deportation to Bolivia; and then his return to the U.S. through the port of entry in Nogales, Ariz., which is how he ended up being held in a detention facility in Eloy for more than three years as he waged a legal battle to be released.
Medina is originally from La Paz, Bolivia's largest city and capital. He said he came to the United States as a legal permanent resident in 1963 when he was 18 and settled in New York City, which has a large community of Bolivian immigrants.
He said he has never lived anywhere else in this country.
A grown son and daughter, eight grandchildren and three sisters, all U.S. citizens, also live in New York, he said.
Medina said he made a living as a long-haul truck driver for more than 30 years. As a legal permanent resident, he was eligible to apply for citizenship but never did, which looking back, "was the biggest mistake I made in my life."
ICE officials said the Level 1 detainee released in Arizona was convicted of multiple non-violent misdemeanors between 1972 and 2002, including five misdemeanors for drug possession, as well as misdemeanor theft and possession of stolen property.
The drug-possession charges involved small amounts of cocaine that were for personal use, Medina said, and the theft and possession-of-stolen-property charges involved a credit card a friend gave him.
Stripped of status
In 2008, ICE deported Medina to Bolivia after an immigration judge ruled that two misdemeanor drug-conviction charges in 2001 and 2003 constituted, for immigration purposes, an aggravated felony, according to a court brief from his lawyer, Spencer Scharff, asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reopen Medina's case.
As a result of the judge's ruling, Medina was stripped of his legal status and deported. Medina said in Bolivia he went to the U.S. Embassy to try to claim the Social Security benefits he was receiving in the United States and was told that he never should have been deported. That prompted him to travel roughly 4,300 miles by bus from South America through Central America and Mexico until he reached Nogales in December 2009.
At the port, Medina said he told U.S. customs officers he was seeking to come back to the U.S. and have his status as a lawful permanent resident restored. After being paroled into the country, Medina was turned over to ICE and sent to a detention center in Eloy while his case was pending.
Acting as his own lawyer, Medina filed legal motions asking for his case to be reopened. He argued that he never should have been deported because a 2010 Supreme Court ruling concluded that multiple misdemeanor drug-possession offenses should not be automatically deemed an aggravated felony.
The vast majority of the 350,000 immigrants in deportation proceedings are not detained. Most are released on their own recognizance or various forms of supervision. Only those deemed a flight risk or a public-safety threat are detained at a cost of about $122 a day, or $44,530 a year.
In October 2011, an immigration judge ordered Medina's deportation case put on hold while the court decided whether to reopen his case to stay in the U.S. That month, two lawyers, Scharff, who is based in Los Angeles, and Igor Timofeyev, based in Washington, agreed to represent Medina pro bono.
"The legal term of art we use in our briefs is that there was a gross miscarriage of justice that occurred in Mr. Medina's prior removal," Scharff said. "And we certainly believe there was a gross miscarriage of justice."
In December 2011, after Medina had spent two years behind bars, an immigration judge found he was not a flight risk or public-safety threat and set a $3,000 bond.
However, Medina could not come up with the money because he said his own family had disowned him.
"I couldn't get the money even though my family has money, but they wouldn't help me," Medina said. "They think I have committed a big crime, and I am the one who got in trouble, and I should solve my problems by myself."
After that, Medina said he filed a motion to be released on his own recognizance, but an immigration judge turned him down. He also filed a request to be released under supervision. At first, Immigration and Customs Enforcement also denied that request, he said. Then, two months ago, officials informed Medina his request for supervised release was being reconsidered.
A surprise release
On Feb. 23, a Saturday, Medina was headed to the library in the detention facility when an officer stopped him in a hallway and told him to report to a visitation area. When he got there, he found the room filled with other detainees.
Medina wasn't sure what was happening.
He asked one fellow: What's going on? They are having people sign orders to be released, the other detainee said. Medina couldn't believe it.


"They were calling us by names. It was a lady officer who wanted to talk to me," Medina said.
The officer told Medina he was being considered for supervised release. She asked him if he had a place to stay with relatives in New York and if he could provide an address and phone number for where he would be staying. After answering, he was told to wait.
"So I waited for a half hour, maybe a little longer, and then they called me back again by my name and they said, 'Sign this paper.'
"I asked her, 'What is it?'" Medina said. "And she told me, 'This is an order of release under supervision.' I was so surprised. I said, 'Thank God.' "
That is when Medina said he broke down and wept in front of the officers. By then, he had been locked up for three years and three months. The hardest part was not knowing when he would get out, he said.
After his release, Medina said, ICE officers drove him the 65 miles from Eloy to Phoenix, where he and other detainees were dropped off at the Greyhound bus station.
"It was a whole bunch of people, at least 40 to 45 persons," Medina said.
It was about 7 p.m. A one-way bus ticket to New York City cost $293. Medina thought ICE officials would give him money for the ticket, but they didn't. He ended up waiting for more than four hours until his sister could get to the bus station in New York and pay for the ticket there. The bus left just before 5 the next morning. The trip took three days.
ICE officials told Medina he would have to wear an electronic bracelet on his ankle after his release. But he wasn't wearing one when they dropped him off at the Greyhound station.
Instead, they told him to check in at the ICE office in New York after he arrived, Medina said.
Medina said he went March 6 to the office in New York to check in as he was told. He thought he would be given a monitoring device to wear on his ankle, but he wasn't. Instead, he said, an officer gave him a new date to check in, July 16, and sent him home.
"I had told them, 'You know, I was released under order of supervision and they had told me I was going to be wearing a device on my ankle,' " Medina said.
The ICE officer responded, " 'I don't know anything about that,' " Medina said.
Home again
After arriving in New York, Medina said he moved in with his former wife but felt uncomfortable and moved out after a few days.
He stayed one night in a shelter, where he said residents were drinking and doing drugs. He realized that could be trouble, so he moved again, ending up at the Fortune Academy, a residential facility in West Harlem that provides housing to people who previously were incarcerated and have nowhere else to live.
Medina said he moved in March 8. At 5 a.m. the following Monday, he said he was asleep in his bed when several federal immigration-enforcement agents awakened him.
Medina said the agents had gone looking for him at his ex-wife's house. When they didn't find him there, they tracked him to the Fortune Academy.
The officers handcuffed him and took him to the Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan, he said.
He explained why he wasn't wearing the electronic bracelet, why he had moved out of his former wife's house and that on Monday morning he had planned to "come downtown to the immigration department to let them know I had changed addresses."
In the end, officers placed an electronic monitoring bracelet on his left ankle. They also instructed him to check in every Wednesday. Medina said he had been afraid he was going to be locked up again.
"What a relief," he said.
The saga of Victor Mendoza Medina
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1. 1963: He emigrates from Bolivia to New York City as a legal permanent U.S. resident.
2. 2008: Immigration judge has him deported to La Paz, Bolivia.
3. December 2009: He reaches Nogales, Ariz., and asks to have his status as a legal permanent resident restored.
4. December 2009 to February 2013: Immigration officials send him to a detention center in Eloy, Ariz.
5. Feb. 23, 2013: Immigration officials release him, taking him to a Greyhound bus station in Phoenix; he takes a bus back to New York City.
Immigration enforcement by the numbers
• 400,000. Immigrants held in detention annually by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
• 350,000. Immigrants in deportation proceedings at any given time. The vast majority are not detained while their cases are pending; most are released on their own recognizance.
• 34,000. Immigrants that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has the money to detain daily.
• 250. Detention centers in the U.S.
• $122. Average daily cost to hold an immigrant in detention center, $44,530 a year.