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ICE does not always place or keep undocumented aliens in lock-up facilities. In this case, a mistake was made about the status of the Gonzalez children. Some high-ranking official believed the kids were undocumented brought to the United States by their undocumented immigrant parents. That these kids were born in the USA would be a huge subject of tremendous embarrassment to ICE and the Golding administration.
Once an undocumented immigrant is arrested, a deportation officer is supposed to make an initial determination as to appropriate charges, and whether to place the person into removal proceedings. The usual charge is unlawful entry. The normal process is for the officer to serve a notice and demand to appear in immigration court. In fact, if ICE detains a person, the law requires this notice to be served within seventy-two hours of detention. The law was completely ignored in the cases of Emilio and Emma Gonzalez.
The kids had a right to see an immigration judge, someone who has no ties to ICE, for a completely impartial review and ruling. If ICE commandoes had done this correctly, the children would have made a quick appearance in court, everyone would have discovered a mistake had been made, and Emilio and Emma would be back with their parents.
Another right not provided to Emma and Emilio was the right to make a free telephone call. Was it overlooked or a purposeful act? This legally required call, a simple act of kindness, might have prevented weeks of separation and anxiety for the Gonzalez family. ICE is not required to detain undocumented immigrants locally, and there were no facilities for children in the Midwest, which is why Emma and Emilio ended up in another state.
Micah Love was Zachary Blake’s primary investigator. Micah was a short, slovenly, porn-obsessed, late forties Jewish guy with very little hair on top. Zack frequently kibitzed with him about his comb-over. On a windy day, strands of hair would blow from one side to the other, completely exposing his bald dome, hair hanging down his neck on the opposite side. Micah was also the best private investigator in Detroit. He and Zack were the best of friends.
The two men gained wealth and fame together, cracking a church conspiracy to cover up the crimes of a pedophile priest. Zack’s lawsuit and Micah’s investigation resulted in a nine-figure jury verdict in what became known in Detroit area legal circles as the civil case of the century. Zack’s client, Jennifer Tracey, later became Zack’s wife, and her abused children became his adopted sons.
In this case, Micah wanted to get the Gonzalez kids released on immigration bond, clear up their citizenship, and get them released for good. After all, they were American citizens. When he began his investigation, the first thing he did was to obtain their birth certificates, both of which proclaimed for ICE and anyone else who would have bothered to check that Emma and Emilio Gonzalez were born in the U. S. of A.
However, to facilitate their release, he had to find out where they were being held. Because of the sheer volume of people arrested by the John and Golding administrations, the commando-style raids, haphazard arrests, and worse, the horrible record-keeping and post-arrest tracking, many of those detained simply ‘disappeared’ into the system without a trace. Unfortunately, two of those people were Emma and Emilio Gonzalez.
Micah decided to begin his investigation online. His cyber specialist, a computer nerd named Reed Spencer, once served time for cyber fraud, having stolen wealthy people's identities. He was only caught because of his own stupid arrogance—he created a password containing his dog’s name and hacked into AmEx’s black card system, stealing thousands from high-net-worth individuals. Cyber investigators tracked him down and arrested him. A deal was cut on a ten-year sentence, and Reed served seven. Reed Spencer did not exactly learn his lesson. He refused to grow up, was still a nerd, and disrespected the police. He enjoyed working for Micah because Micah liked to stick it to the police from time to time. He hoped the investigation would totally embarrass the already highly criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.
Reed began his investigation by logging onto the ICE website. He immediately located something called the ICE Online Detainee Locator System. This is promising, he thought. Wrong, he concluded. To conduct a search, he needed an ‘A-Number,’ a nine-digit Alien Number assigned to the detainee, usually found on the person’s green card or work permit. The obvious problem here was that these were American children. They had no work permit, no green card, and no A-Number. The other search method was by the immigrant’s home country. This was also a dead end because the home country was the United States of America in this case. Reed did try ‘Venezuela’ to see what would happen. Thousands of ‘Gonzalez’ entries popped up, but no ‘Emma’ or ‘Emilio.’
He tried their first and last name, family country of origin, and dates of birth but had no luck narrowing the search. After numerous trials and errors, he discovered a small print warning: ‘Our Locator System may only be used to search for detainees over the age of 18’. Now you tell me!
Reed’s next step was to call in a favor. Someone at the child welfare office owed him a favor. It was quite possible that when ICE rounded up the kids, agents placed them in state or local social services facilities. He contacted his friend, gave her all of the information he had, and came up empty. No Emma, no Emilio, no Gonzalez.
He decided to talk to Micah about a more aggressive approach. Direct confrontation, not cyber, was the way to go. He walked to Micah’s office and found the boss on the telephone with Jessica Klein, his longtime girlfriend. Micah saw Reed at his door, motioned him to come in, and pointed to a seat on one of his office side chairs.
“Jessica, you are insatiable,” Micah grunted into the receiver. “I cannot keep up with you. You’re going to give me a heart attack . . . What? No! We can’t! I have a business to run and a reputation to consider. What if someone follows me? Uh-huh . . . I like the sound of that. Yes, we can absolutely start with dinner. Right, money is no object. Somewhere near the hotel and very expensive is fine . . . Sounds good . . . sounds wonderful . . . looking forward to the weekend . . . Yes, dear . . . whatever you say, dear. I’ll be there—I promise. Love you too, sweetheart. Bye.”
The investigator hung up the phone, folded his hands on his desktop, and glared at Reed, giving the cyber-specialist his full attention.
“What the hell was that?” Reed wondered.
“That was Jessica and none of your business.”
“Come on, Micah . . . what is it . . . a little weekend rendezvous?”
“My lips are sealed. I plead the fifth. What the hell do you want?”
“How is the lovely Ms. Klein?”
“Same as ever, as you might have gathered from listening to the telephone call.”
“But I only heard one side of the call. What was she saying?”
Micah put two fingers on one side of his mouth and brought them across to the other side, symbolically ‘zipping’ his mouth shut.
“What’s up, Reed?” Micah changed the subject.
“We’re not going to locate these kids using cyber or any type of remote or online tools. The government’s tracking system sucks. There are all kinds of cracks. For instance, they have a numbering system for undocumented people, but you can’t give American citizens numbers. Did anyone think to ask these kids where they were born? That should have been the end of this nightmare.
“These kids were snatched without due process, without anyone caring about due process, all because John and Golding wanted to punish or put pressure on undocumented parents to self-deport. The administration’s so-called ‘zero-tolerance’ policy put thousands of kids in the same boat. And get this. There is no requirement for ICE to keep these kids in local detention centers. These kids could be anywhere. We are literally looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“What do you suggest?”
“A two-step process—one, Zack goes back to court and gets an order compelling all records relating to the raid, the name, rank, serial number, and current location of all participants, especially those in charge. Zack takes their depositions under oath and gets the information we need.”
“We are up against the clock here, Reed, and that might take some time. What’s the second step?” Micah queried.
“Good old-fashioned leg work. You and every one of our investigators go to these ICE command offices, one by one, and demand to speak to the people in charge. Otherwise, we sneak in, under color of authority, and get a peek at some records. There has to be a record or two about the plant raid and the school raid. Maybe we can find out where the kids were taken.”
“If they screwed up and took two American citizens to a detention center in who-knows-where, why wouldn’t they just admit they screwed up and help us find them?” Micah grumbled.
“Zero-tolerance? Embarrassment—unwillingness to admit a screw-up? This is the John-Golding administration, Micah! You expect competency and reasonableness from these guys?” Reed waved his arms in the air.
“Let’s assume for the moment I agree with you. What’s your play?”
“Try to quickly identify the right place to search. Send a couple of our ex-military guys in there. Full uniform, phony credentials, the works . . . and . . . simply demand to see the records.” Reed sat back and smiled, folding his hands behind his head.
Micah glared at him, stupefied. “That’s it? That’s your plan? Are you nuts? That’s illegal! We could end up in federal prison!”
“These guys are worse than the cops. Look what they’ve done. They hijacked two American citizens for crying out loud! One hand doesn’t know what the other one is doing, and many of them don’t care, one way or the other. This must be the dumbest, most haphazard government operation in the history of dumb, haphazard government operations. With the right uniforms and proper forged documents, my department, and the right guys in your department, we can absolutely pull this off. They won’t know what hit them! Better yet, they won’t report the fuck-up for fear they’ll look like the idiots they are.”
“Do you have anyone in mind for the operation?”
“As a matter of fact, I do . . .”
The conversation continued for over two hours. Reed thought of everything. The more Micah heard, the more comfortable he became. This could actually work!
