Meet Francisco Erwin Galicia, 18, allegedly born in Dallas, who you’ll be hearing a lot about today as he’s been in detention for the past three weeks after he and his Mexico-born brother were picked up at a checkpoint in south Texas:
A Dallas-born citizen picked up by the Border Patrol has been detained for three weeks https://t.co/25s4WNf89N
— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) July 23, 2019
From the Dallas Morning News:
Galicia was traveling with his 17-year-old brother Marlon Galicia and a group of friends from Edinburg where they live to Ranger College in North Texas for a soccer scouting event when they came upon a CBP checkpoint, said Sanjuana Galicia, his mother.
It was about 8 p.m. Marlon, who was born in Mexico and lacked legal status, had only been through a border checkpoint on school trips and had never been pressed to provide travel documents.
But this time was different, Marlon said. He had only a school ID. His brother was carrying only his Texas ID, which can only be obtained with a Social Security number.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chimed in, and of course, didn’t seem the least bit curious as to why the Border Patrol and ICE would hold an American citizen for the past three weeks:
CBP is detaining *American citizens.*
How would you feel trapped in a border camp, where guards wear face masks because the human odor is so strong?
When we allow the rights of some to be violated, the rights of all are not far behind. https://t.co/U4NFQtv8F3
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 23, 2019
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Thankfully the Washington Post got some answers that AOC and others don’t really care about. In short, CBP and ICE are holding Galicia because his mom, who is in the U.S. illegally, applied for a US tourist visa when he was a minor and said he was born in Mexico:
The reason it appears to have taken CBP and ICE so long to determine Galicia’s citizenship is because his mother, who is not a citizen, took out a U.S. tourist visa in his name while he was still a minor, falsely saying he was born in Mexico, [Claudia Galan, his attorney] said. His mother, Sanjuana, told The Post that CBP discovered the visa after fingerprinting her son. The conflicting documents only fueled the agency’s suspicion that Galicia’s U.S. documents were fake, Galan said.
But wait, there’s more! The mom also didn’t use her real name on his birth certificate:
Sanjuana said she took out the tourist visa for her son because she saw it as the only way he could travel back and forth across the border to visit family. The undocumented mother was unable to get him a U.S. passport because when Galicia was born, Galan said, she gave a different name for herself on his birth certificate. (The birth certificate and other identifying documents were reviewed by The Post.)
Galan, the boy’s attorney, insists she has other documentation proving he is an America citizen and will work with authorities to secure his release:
But Galan said that even after explaining his mother’s error to CBP authorities, and after faxing additional paperwork corroborating that he is a U.S. citizen, Galicia remained in detention. She said she has started the process again with ICE and intends to travel to the agency’s South Texas Detention Facility on Tuesday to assist Galicia in signing the paperwork that she hopes will secure his release.
Blame his mom, not CBP, AOC.
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