The 18-year-old US citizen detained for 23 days by border officials said conditions were so bad that he almost requested deportation
- 18-year-old US citizen Francisco Erwin Galicia was falsely detained after Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers refused to believe his Texas state legal documents were real.
- He was released on Tuesday after a total of 23 days in detention in CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities.
- He described what he called "inhumane" conditions at the CBP facility to The Dallas Morning News, saying that he wasn't allowed to shower and given so little food he lost 26 pounds.
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Francisco Erwin Galicia, the US citizen mistakenly detained by border officials for over three weeks, said conditions in federal custody were so bad that he almost requested to be self-deported, The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday.
The 18-year-old, Dallas-born high school student was detained after officials questioned the validity of his legal documents at a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) checkpoint during a day out with friends on June 27, according to the the Morning News.
CBP detained him for three weeks, then transferred him to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Pearsall, Texas, the Morning News reported.
He spent time in the ICE facility from Saturday to Tuesday afternoon, when he was released, the Morning News and The Associated Press (AP) reported.
In total, he spent 23 days in federal custody.
Broadly, CBP conducts inspections at the border and detects unauthorized entries into the US, while ICE enforces US immigration laws. This includes arresting, detaining, and deporting people.
'Inhumane' conditions
Galicia has described the conditions in CBP detention as "inhumane." Here's what he told the Morning News on Wednesday:
- He was given insufficient food, losing 26 pounds during his detention.
- He wasn't allowed to shower, leaving his skin dry and dirty. (It's not clear if he wasn't allowed to shower at all, or only permitted to shower a few times, during his stay.)
- He was crammed into an overcrowded holding area with 60 other men.
- They slept on the floor and were only given aluminum-foil blankets as cover.
- Some men slept on the bathroom floor.
- Some of the men were bitten by ticks, and some were very sick. But many of them were afraid to ask to see a doctor because CBP officers said that if they did, their detention at the facility would restart.
He says he was also denied access to a phone while in CBP custody, so he couldn't call his family, his mother told the Morning News. He only regained that access after being transferred to the ICE facility, she said.
"It was inhumane how they treated us," Galicia told the Morning News on Wednesday.
"It got to the point where I was ready to sign a deportation paper just to not be suffering there anymore. I just needed to get out of there," he said.
"It's one thing to see these conditions on TV and in the news. It's another to go through them."
Neither CBP nor ICE immediately responded to requests for comment from INSIDER on the Morning News' report.
How an American citizen got detained
Galicia was detained while traveling north with friends to a soccer scouting event from the border city of Edinburg, Texas, The Associated Press.
They were due to start senior year of high school next year, and wanted to "do something to secure our education" after graduation, Galicia told the Morning News.
Agents approached him, suspecting that he was in the US illegally, the AP reported.
Galicia presented them with a Texas birth certificate, a Texas ID card, and a Social Security card, his lawyer Claudia Galan told The Washington Post. But the officers didn't believe him, saying they suspected his documents were fake.
'Absolutely' a victim of racial profiling, lawyer says
Galan said Galicia was "absolutely" a victim of racial profiling, noting that everyone in the vehicle with him at the time was Latino, the AP reported.
One reason why CBP and ICE took so long to release Galicia is because his mother, who is not a US citizen, took out a US tourist visa in Galicia's name that falsely said he was born in Mexico, the Post reported, citing Galan.
Galicia's mother took out the tourist visa while Galicia was still a minor so he could travel back and forth between the US and Mexico to visit family, the Post reported.
Galicia's 17-year-old brother Marlon, who was born in Mexico and lacks legal status in the US, was also in the car.
Francisco's detention prompted Marlon's voluntary deportation within two days, the Morning News reported, and Marlon is currently in Mexico.
CBP and ICE said in a joint statement on Wednesday, according to the AP: "Situations including conflicting reports from the individual and multiple birth certificates can, and should, take more time to verify," adding that the agencies "continue to research the facts of the situation."
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