(Center) Raul Reyes Lopez. Courtesy: CIYJA

Raul Reyes Lopez, a Guatemalan man who has been trying to establish legal status for more than a decade, has now been in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody for more than two years.

His lawyers have filed a petition for habeas corpus, asserting their client’s right to due process.  Daniel Werner, Lopez’ lawyer from Dolores Street Community Services in San Francisco, said that his client was being unlawfully detained because he has not been given a bail hearing for over a year.

Lopez immigrated to the United States almost three decades ago, escaping the years of civil war that had plagued his country.

In 1993 Lopez applied for asylum, but the “notario” (public notary) who was helping him through the process never notified Lopez of his asylum interview, according to Werner.

The asylum interview is where an agent from U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (CIS) will ask about the application and background of the person applying for asylum.

In 2008 Lopez got into an altercation with a family member, which led to his arrest. After he was processed he learned that he had an outstanding deportation order. He was permitted to leave on a conditional release according to Werner, but had to continue to check in with ICE.

In 2015, Lopez’s mother died of cancer. According to his daughter Alexa, Lopez was very close with his mother and after her death he started drinking heavily.

In 2016, Lopez was arrested for a DUI. When he was released, he surrendered himself to ICE in 2017 and on he was detained at a check in.

Lopez had a bail hearing in September 2017, but since then has never had chance to plead his case and explain the positive changes he has made in his life, such as his rehabilitation from alcohol.

To bring more attention to Lopez’s case, in June of 2018 his daughter Alexa celebrated her quinceañera outside of West County Detention Facility in Richmond where he was being detained.

In what organizers suspect was an act of political retaliation, ICE transferred Lopez from the facility in Richmond to a detention center in Denver, according to Juan Prieto, of the California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance.

Prieto explained that federal immigration courts fall under the executive branch, reporting directly to the U.S. Attorney General; thus they have the same agenda as the president.

The move, which happened two weeks after his daughter’s quinceañera, has placed Lopez far away from the support system which had rallied around him to advocate for his rehabilitation and freedom, Werner said.

“My father just wants to be with his family and provide for them like everybody else,” Alexa said.

Lopez’s lawyers went to federal court on Dec. 21 to argue over immigration court’s decision of not allowing another bail hearing in over a year when the Constitution requires such a hearing to be every six months.

They were met with a delay as Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim could not decide whether to dismiss the immigration court’s ruling that day and it would take some time for her to come up with a decision.

On. Dec. 24 the judge ordered the immigration court to go over Lopez’s case again and they denied his bail hearing.

Lopez still has hope for his petition of habeas corpus, and his lawyers have filed additional motions to try to secure his immediate release, but if he is not released, he could be detained for years while he fights his ongoing immigration case, according to Werner.