MIAMI — A US citizen was arrested in Florida for allegedly being in the country illegally and held for pickup by immigration authorities, despite the fact that his mother presented a judge with her son’s birth certificate, and the charges were dismissed.
Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez, 20, was in a car stopped by the Florida Highway Patrol near the Georgia state line on Wednesday, according to Thomas Kennedy, a spokesperson for the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
Gomez and others in the car were arrested under a new Florida law that, while on hold, makes illegal entry into the state a crime.
It is unclear whether Lopez Gomez presented documents proving his citizenship to the arresting officers. He was detained at Leon County Jail and later released after his case received widespread media attention.
The charge of illegal entry into Florida was dropped Thursday after his mother presented the judge with his state identification card, birth certificate, and Social Security card, according to Kennedy, who attended the hearing.
According to court records, Judge Lashawn Riggans determined that the charge had no basis.
Lopez Gomez was briefly detained after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement requested that he remain there for 48 hours, which is a common practice when the agency wants to take custody of someone. ICE did not return a request for comment.
The case drew widespread attention because ICE is not supposed to detain U.S.-born citizens. While the immigration agency may occasionally intervene in cases involving naturalized citizens who have committed offenses such as lying on immigration forms, it has no authority over people born in the United States.
Adding to the confusion is a federal judge’s decision to halt enforcement of the Florida law against people who are illegally entering the state, implying that it should not have been enforced.
“No one should be arrested under that law, let alone a United States citizen,” said Alana Greer, an immigration attorney with the Florida Immigrant Coalition. “They saw this person, he didn’t speak English particularly well, and so they arrested him and charged him with this law that no one (should) be charged with.”
Nicholas Riccardi, an Associated Press reporter in Denver, contributed to this report.