Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen, was being held in the Leon County Jail Thursday, charged with illegally entering Florida as an “unauthorized alien” — even as a supporter waved his U.S. birth certificate in court.
A Florida Highway Patrol trooper arrested Lopez-Gomez after a traffic stop in which he was a passenger. The 20-year-old is set to remain in jail for the next 48 hours, waiting for federal immigration officials to pick him up despite his first-degree misdemeanor charge being dropped.
His mother, Sebastiana Gomez-Perez, burst into tears at the sight of her son, who appeared virtually for his first hearing at the Leon County Courthouse. She left the courtroom distraught because she could do nothing to help her son, who was born and lives in Grady County, Georgia.
“I wanted to tell them, ‘Where are you going to take him? He is from here,’” his mother told the Phoenix in Spanish moments after exiting the courtroom. “I felt immense helplessness because I couldn’t do anything, and I am desperate to get my son out of there.”
She continued through tears: “It hurts so much. I’m sorry, I can’t.”
A lieutenant working in the Leon County Jail didn’t allow the mother to see Lopez-Gomez on Thursday and told her officials were working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on how to proceed. A Phoenix reporter accompanied Gomez-Perez to the jail.
Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggans held Lopez-Gomez’s birth certificate up to the light after community advocate Silvia Alba silently waved the document in the courtroom.
“In looking at it, and feeling it, and holding it up to the light, the court can clearly see the watermark to show that this is indeed an authentic document,” Riggans said.
Based on her inspection of his birth certificate and Social Security card, Riggans said she found no probable cause for the charge. However, the state prosecutor insisted the court lacked jurisdiction over Lopez-Gomez’s release because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had formally asked the jail to hold him.
“This court does not have any jurisdiction other than what I’ve already done,” Riggans said.
Riggans said she was very sorry as Lopez-Gomez’s mother left.
‘I can’t do anything for their brother’
The 20-year-old’s first language is Tzotzil, a Mayan language, and he took a long pause when he was asked if he wanted to hire a private attorney or obtain a public defender. He lived in Mexico from the time he was 1-year-old until four years ago, when he returned to Georgia, his mother told the Phoenix.
The Homeland Security Investigations Office in Tampa issued the 48-hour ICE detainer on Thursday. An ICE officer whose name and phone number appear in the detainer refused to speak with the Phoenix.
“He hasn’t committed a crime for them to hold him, that’s what I don’t understand. I’m feeling bad because my daughters are asking me how their brother is. It hurts because I can’t do anything for their brother,” she said.
At issue is a recently passed law that a federal judge has temporarily barred the state from enforcing, further calling into question the validity of his arrest, the charge, and detention. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed SB 4-C into law on Feb. 14, and U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams blocked its enforcement on April 4.
The law makes it a misdemeanor for undocumented immigrants over age 18 to “knowingly” enter Florida “after entering the United States by eluding or avoiding examination or inspection by immigration officers.”
Two other men who were in the car with Lopez-Gomez, the driver and another passenger, also had their first appearances on the same charges on Thursday. The driver was also charged with driving without a license.
The state trooper pulled over the car Lopez-Gomez was in because the driver was going 78 mph in a 65 mph zone, according to the arrest report. Lopez-Gomez gave his Georgia state ID to the trooper, who wrote in his report that Lopez-Gomez said he was in the country illegally.
Wednesday marked the second time Lopez-Gomez has been arrested. The Grady County Sheriff’s office took him into custody on Sunday and charged him with driving under the influence, his mother said. ICE also requested that the Georgia jail hold Lopez-Gomez, but he won release after his family showed officials his birth certificate and Social Security card, Gomez-Perez said.
Thomas Kennedy, a policy analyst for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, met Gomez-Perez at the courthouse. He said Lopez-Gomez’s case is exactly what his organization has been warning lawmakers would happen.
“It was just really sad seeing the mother distraught over her son, and the fact that she acknowledged that this is very likely a case of racial profiling against a U.S. citizen who can’t speak English,” he said in a phone interview with the Phoenix.
The Georgia Recorder, a partner of Florida Phoenix, has submitted a public records request to obtain more information about his arrest Sunday. This story was updated with information from the arrest report at 4:55 p.m.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
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