ICE Deports Brothers Who Helped Put Dangerous Shooter Behind Bars

In 2014, Noe Lopez-Mulato was playing a soccer game in southwest Detroit. The field was the only place where Noe could really unwind and forget about his problems. But that all changed when an irate fan started verbally abusing the player.

Noe, who wasn’t new to hecklers, exchanged words with the unruly fan. The irate man pulled out a gun and started shooting, striking his brother in the process. Noe’s brother ran into the field to help him out but ended up injured, instead.

The brothers are both undocumented immigrants. They cooperated with the police and testified against the dangerous shooter, who got arrested. Normally, a special U.S. visa would allow them to stay in the country legally after an incident like this. However, that document never arrived.

A couple of weeks ago, while Noe Lopez-Mulato was driving his 10-year-old son to school, he got pulled over by ICE agents and handcuffed in front of the little boy. Noe’s son was visibly shaken by the situation.

“They just said, ‘We have to take your dad,'” said Randy Lopez-Mulato, with his voice quivering as he remembered his father’s last words to him. “He said that he loves everybody.”

“I want him to come back,” continued the fifth-grader, but this time with tears in his eyes. “He takes care of our family.” Five days after the arrest, Noe got deported. The nightmare was far from over, though.

Days later, his brother, Jose Lopez Mulato, who had taken a bullet for his brother, also got picked up by ICE agents and deported. Jose tried explaining that his special U visa application was still pending. But the agents did not listen.

“These are good, decent people. This is the backbone of our country,” said attorney Michael Harrison – a prominent Birmingham lawyer taking on the case pro-bono. “What kind of message is this sending to this community?”

“To me, the message is ‘Stay in the shadows. Don’t cooperate with police.” continued the lawyer. He once worked on an anti-gang task force in southwest Detroit, speaking about what he learned about criminal activity against immigrants.

“I learned that often, undocumented individuals were specifically targeted by criminals for crimes such as robbery, rape, and felonious assault specifically because they were undocumented — and the criminals felt safe that such people would be afraid to cooperate with the police,” said Harrison.

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ICE got contacted by the Detroit Free Press to comment about the case but declined to do so. Instead, they issued a statement about their efforts to uphold immigration laws in the United States.

“ICE does not engage in raids or roundups. This implies indiscriminate enforcement, something in which ICE does not engage. The agency conducts targeted enforcement actions in which specific individuals are sought based on investigative leads and intelligence gathering,” ICE said in a statement to the Free Press. “ICE continues to focus its enforcement resources on individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security. However, as ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan has made clear, ICE does not exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement. All of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States.”

Article inspired by the Detroit Free Press // ‘We have to take your dad’: Man deported by ICE after helping Detroit cops