Well, this is weird. . .
Franciso Galicia, the alleged American citizen who was detained for 23 days because his mother listed his country of birth as Mexico on a tourist visa and used a fake ID on his U.S. birth certificate, can’t speak English. Here he is telling CNN that, “I don’t speak English but I’m going to learn”:
.@CNNValencia sits down with Francisco Galicia, who was born in the US but detained by immigration officials for more than three weeks. https://t.co/U2aHCjxLXq pic.twitter.com/pX8YL3gVH2
— CNN (@CNN) July 26, 2019
Galicia also told CBS News that he’s planning to graduate high school next year:
“We’re supposed to graduate from high school next year, and we wanted to do something to secure our education,”
Originally Galicia’s attorney told the Washington Post that he’d been in the U.S. his entire life, but now his “English is not good”? Which is it:
The Francisco Erwin Galicia story still doesn't add up. Galan is his atty==>
WaPost: "'He’s been here all his life,' Galan said" https://t.co/gD23JH7K4C
But to https://t.co/cGcaJU752i: "Francisco's English is not good." https://t.co/7YZcifrMsZ— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) July 25, 2019
And yesterday, Brian Hastings, Chief of Law Enforcement at the U.S. Border Patrol, testified in Congress that Galicia never identified himself as a U.S. citizen while he was in custody. From the Dallas Morning News:
Hastings replied that at the Falfurrias checkpoint where Galicia and his younger brother Marlon Galicia were taken into custody, Francisco “claimed to be a Mexican National who was born in Reynosa, Mexico.”
“Throughout the process, and while he was with Border Patrol, he claimed to be a citizen of Mexico with no immigration documents to be in or remain in the U.S.,” Hastings told the members of Congress.
“Upon further investigation we also found that he had a border crossing card and that border crossing card he had used 53 times to cross the border into the U.S., which gives us further indication that he was not a U.S. citizen. At no time in Border Patrol custody did he say that he was a U.S. citizen.”
We will note, however, that Hasting’s statement is contradicted by a DHS report that says Galicia was detained for falsely claiming he was a U.S. citizen:
A Border Patrol chief testified that 18-year-old Francisco Erwin Galicia never claimed to be a U.S. citizen when he was in Border Patrol custody for 23 days.
But that contradicts a DHS notice accusing Galicia of falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen.https://t.co/XlCF4C2xBJ
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 26, 2019
Something tells us this story isn’t quite finished yet. To be continued. . .
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Related:
Contrary to what AOC says, here’s why CBP and ICE detained an alleged American citizen for 3 weeks https://t.co/eXNgGP7xEo
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) July 23, 2019