A 20-year-old Georgia resident who was wrongfully detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Florida has been released about 24 hours later.
Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez was taken into custody on April 16 during a traffic stop. He was in a vehicle with others who had traveled from Georgia and was headed to a job in Florida.
According to the Florida Phoenix, which first reported the arrest, a judge in Leon County determined during an initial hearing that a birth certificate presented by Lopez-Gomez was authentic. However, the judge said she did not have jurisdiction beyond ruling there was no probable cause for the charge. As a result, he continued to be detained on a request to hold him from ICE.
A Florida state trooper reported that a passenger in the vehicle presented a Georgia ID and that both Lopez-Gomez and another passenger admitted to being in the U.S. illegally when asked about their immigration status. Court documents indicate the trooper later confirmed with ICE that Lopez-Gomez had entered both Florida and the United States illegally despite the fact that Georgia does not allow undocumented immigrants to obtain state-issued ID cards.
Lopez-Gomez's arrest was possible thanks to a sweeping immigration law signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023, which criminalizes the transportation of undocumented persons into the state.
Thomas Kennedy, a spokesman for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, told NBC News he believes racial profiling also played a role in Lopez-Gomez's arrest.
"Since DeSantis has become governor, we have had an anti-immigrant law passed every year," Kennedy said. "It creates a persecutory environment where the whole state becomes a 'show me your papers' modus operandi and you have laws that contradict the constitutional rights of Americans," he added.
Mutaqee Akbar, Lopez-Gomez's attorney, said the arrest and holding of the 20-year-old Georgia resident was "indicative of just the over aggression when it comes down to that law."
"I think it's indicative of the troopers not even willing to see the proof that was right in front of them," Akbar said. "Mr. Lopez-Gomez had a Social Security card and he also had Georgia ID and he presented them both and they were ignored," he added.
The attorney said the criminal case involving Lopez-Gomez's charge is still open. He said the next step for his client is to get the charges dismissed and floated the idea of pursuing a civil liability claim against the state of Florida for wrongful arrest.
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