Laura Barron-Lopez:
That’s right. The U.S. citizen is Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, and he was detained by ICE for nearly 48 hours in Florida. He was arrested during a traffic stop under a state law that makes it illegal for undocumented immigrants to cross into — that are over the age of 18 to cross into Florida.
And, now, the key thing here was that law was suspended by a judge when Carlos Gomez was arrested. Now, we asked the Homeland Security Department about this.
A senior DHS official said in a statement to “News Hour” that: “After a stop by a Florida highway patrol trooper, a dual citizen of Mexico and the U.S. was detained after he said that he was in the U.S. illegally. Immediately after learning the individual was a United States citizen, he was released.’
Now, my producer Shrai Popat and I spoke to Juan and his mother, and Juan disputes Homeland Security’s claim, and he said that he told Highway Patrol that he was a United States citizen and shared his story with us.
