A Utah man with legal permanent residency endured a 48-day stint in an immigration detention facility after visiting family in his native Peru. Junior Dioses, who has lived in the United States since 2002, found himself ensnared in the complexities of immigration law despite holding a ‘green card’ and calling Utah home for over two decades. According to ABC4, Dioses said he attended Highland High School and has built his life in the U.S. since arriving at the age of 16.
The detention, characterized by his legal counsel as wrongful, could have been avoided had proper checks been carried out. His attorney described what happened to Dioses as a direct consequence of government oversight. As reported by KSLTV, the attorney indicated that Dioses' past charges did not meet the criteria for deportation under current immigration laws, stating, "There's already case law that says these are not crimes involving moral turpitude," and argued that this mishap "would have known they had inappropriately incarcerated and inappropriately begun deportation proceedings against someone who should have never been in that type of position."
This incident points to deeper issues within the immigration enforcement framework, where a lack of diligence can precipitate significant missteps. Reflecting on the trauma of his detention, Dioses expressed his distress to Fox13Now, saying, "I just feel really bad because I'm no criminal. I just work harder." His attorney is now pushing for his citizenship to avert a recurrence of such an ordeal. He emphasized that the mistake would likely not have occurred in Utah due to the familiarity of local immigration prosecutors with Dioses' case, which allowed him to slip through the cracks of a sprawling and sometimes impersonal immigration system.
