Immigrant Confused With Gang Member

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

A 25-year-old young immigrant filed a lawsuit against the Chicago police on Tuesday, claiming that he was wrongly identified as a gang member, and that the confusion has now led to his deportation.

Luis Vicente Pedrote-Salinas claimed before a Chicago district court that he was included in a list of the dangerous Latin Kings association, and that because of this he was arrested at his home in 2011.

The young man says that due to the arrest, the authorities rejected his application to the DACA (Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program, which is granted to people who, like him, entered to the country when they were children, and that provides protection against deportation.

The confusions began in January 2011, when officers working on a "gang suppression mission" arrested him on charges related to alcohol use. Said charges were later dismissed, as alleged in the lawsuit.

Pedrote-Salinas assures that then, the police placed him on a list of the Latin Kings gang and that he was included in said database due to his name, race, age and the neighborhood where he lived, triggering then - he said - “a series of catastrophic events”.

With the lawsuit, Pedrote-Salinas and his lawyers are seeking redress for damages and want the judge to declare that the city's practices violated the young man's constitutional rights, the Reuters agency reported.

"The problem with these lists is that they never tell you that they have included you in a gang database, and they never confront you with the evidence they are using," the boy exclaimed.

Chicago police spokesmen declined to comment. The deportation date for Pedrote-Salinas has been set for July 20.