SALT LAKE CITY — Junior Dioses has been in the state of Utah for over 20 years and has always had a green card.
“I’m from Peru. I live in the United States. I have 23 years here. I have family,” Dioses said.
On April 28, however, he landed in Texas after visiting his family in Peru and was stopped by Customs and Border Protection at the airport.
“He's told, not only are you going to be detained, we're also going to start deportation proceedings against you,” said Adam Crayk, Dioses’ attorney.
Crayk said two charges were on his record, one from the early 2000s which was failure to stop at a signal of a police officer.
“Presumably, police initiated a stop. He failed to notice the lights, kept going. Ultimately stopped. But because it took longer than it should have, he was charged,” Crayk said.
Another was from 2019 which was a Class C misdemeanor for disorderly conduct.
“A neighbor called the police because there was an argument. There was some yelling going on, and unfortunately, the close living quarters resulted in the police being called and disorderly conduct charges being filed, and he said guilty of that,” Crayk said.
Crayk said, however, this was no reason for Dioses to be detained.
“You've got an immigration prosecutor who has filed deportation charges against Junior for charges which in his very state have already been vetted, already been determined to not be crimes involving moral turpitude,” he said.
Dioses was detained in Texas for 50 days total.
“Just 48 days in the detention center and two days at the airport,” Dioses said.
Dioses said his experience in the facility was a nightmare.
“The detention center is crazy. It's really bad inside,” Dioses said. “It's 90 people asleep there, and it's a lot of loud in there, there’s people fighting. It's crazy. I don't like it.”
Crayk said while that Dioses was in the facility, they filed a motion to terminate.
“What's even more frustrating is the government doesn't even file a motion in opposition. They don't even argue with us. Okay? The judge looks at it, reads it, grants it,” he said.
It took another seven days for Dioses to be released.
Crayk said more research needed to be done, especially as he notices more and more cases where due process was violated.
“I get that they looked at it and said, Whoa, this guy's got two crimes. But that does not support the action of filing deportation proceedings against somebody without vetting and looking to whether or not your own case law in your own state supports what you're doing,” Crayk said.
Crayk said they are immediately applying for citizenship to prevent something like this from happening again.
“I just feel really bad because I'm no criminal. I just work harder,” Dioses said.
“I'm pretty confident if, if he would have landed here in Utah, knowing our immigration prosecutors here, never would have happened. Nothing would have been filed. Junior would have walked out of the airport,” Crayk said.
FOX 13 reached out to CBP to get an explanation on why they detained Dioses but did not receive a response.
