Trump Administration Targets and then Mocks Immigrant with Prosthetic Leg
Felipe Albanza-Lopez is a DACA recipient, an amputee who has been detained for nearly a month. ICE claims he was smuggling undocumented immigrants when detained. Felipe claims his guards have mocked his disability saying things like “You can put a broomstick in his leg and he can sweep.”
Click on The Grito, on the right of the story, to call ICE and demand his release.
A 20-year-old undocumented immigrant with prosthetic leg and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status has been detained by federal immigration agents and held without charges for over a month, treated inhumanely and mocked for his prosthetic leg, an immigrant advocacy group says.
Felipe Abonza-Lopez of San Marcos, Texas–detained by Customs and Border Protection agents on October 11 as part of a human smuggling investigation–would be the second disabled undocumented immigrant in less than a month to be detained by federal immigration agents.
The first internationally-publicized case involved 10-year-old Rosa Maria Hernandez, who was detained on October 24 en route to Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi from her home in Laredo, Texas, for emergency gallbladder surgery. Rosa Maria, who suffers from cerebral palsy was brought illegally into the United States at three months of age by her mother. She was held for over a week in a San Antonio detention center, sparking international outrage and a social media campaign demanding her release.
Abonza-Lopez, a DACA recipient whose status expires in 2019, was detained near Uvalde, Texas on October 11 when the car he and three of his undocumented relatives were in was pulled over by local police and handed over to Border Patrol, said Amy Fischer, policy director of Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES). Fischer is working with Abonza-Lopez’s lawyers to get him released, she said.
