Feds Detain 1st DREAMer in Immigration Raids

The first case of many? A man brought to the US from Mexico as a child is being detained by immigration authorities despite having been granted a work permit under President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals plan, Fusion reports. Daniel Ramirez Medina, 23, was arrested when Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived at his Seattle home to detain his father for undisclosed reasons, the Guardian reports. He is believed to be the first of around 750,000 "DREAMers" brought to the US illegally as children to be detained in recent immigration raids, and lawyers have filed a petition in federal court seeking his release.

Lawyers say Ramirez has been in the country since he was 7 years old and accuse the government of breaking a promise not to target DACA recipients for deportation, the Seattle Times reports. "Trust in our government depends upon the executive branch keeping its word," says Mark Rosenbaum, director of the Public Counsel Law Center, who's representing Ramirez. An ICE spokesperson describes Ramirez as a "self-admitted gang member" who's being detained "to await the outcome of removal proceedings" because he is a risk to public safety, though Rosenbaum says his client denies being in a gang, CNN reports. He says Ramirez was pressured to "falsely admit affiliation" while in immigration custody. (More Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals stories.)