Feds agree to pay wrongly detained vet $400K
Immigration officials tried to deport citizen, Army veteran
The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Feb 24, 2011 18:21:14 EST
SEATTLE — The U.S. government has agreed to pay $400,000 to an American citizen and Army veteran from Washington state who was locked up for seven months while immigration officials wrongly tried to deport him.
Rennison Castillo was transferred to the Northwest Detention Center in 2005 when he finished serving a jail sentence for violating a protection order and harassment. The native of Belize explained repeatedly that he had become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1998 while serving in the Army, but neither Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials nor an immigration judge believed him. He was finally released after the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and Seattle attorneys took up his case on appeal.
“ICE officers did not listen to me when I told them repeatedly that I was a U.S. citizen and had served in the Army at Fort Lewis,” he said in a statement released Thursday. “They were disrespectful and told me that I would say anything to get out of detention.”
The government gave him a letter of apology written by the assistant U.S. attorney in Tacoma who handled the case.
“I believe that none of my clients ... would ever have wanted to, or knowingly would have, detained a veteran and a United States citizen,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Philip Lynch wrote. “We very much regret that you were detained.”
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Feds agree to pay wrongly detained vet $400K
Friday, February 25, 2011
Immigration officials tried to deport citizen, Army veteran
He wasn't born here but was willing to serve this country and die for it. He played by the rules and became a citizen in 1998 while he was serving. Even with all of this, Rennison Castillo he was taken to jail, then to a detention center in 2005. Do you think $400,000 is enough for what happened to him?
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