SEATTLE — The Department of Justice is announcing a settlement of a claim filed by Daniel Ramirez Medina, a Des Moines ‘dreamer’ who was arrested.
On February 10, 2017, Ramirez Medina's brother captured cellphone video of ICE agents taking the 23-year-old into custody. What followed was a lawsuit filed on his behalf that said Ramirez Medina told immigration officers that he had a work permit under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program known as DACA, but he was arrested and taken to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.
At the time, Luis Cortes Romero, one of his attorneys, said, “they confirmed that he had no criminal history, and it was at that point they continued to detain him. That is where it starts getting problematic. It was at that point they started asking him if he had any gang affiliations, if he was a gang member, and he repeatedly said, 'I am not a gang member.'"
Ramirez Medina, who was detained for more than six weeks, filed a $450,000 tort claim against various government agencies.
The settlement does not involve a monetary payment, but it does grant Ramirez Medina a four-year stay of removal from the United States. During that time, he can apply for other immigration relief. And ICE, when evaluating applications, cannot consider any of the past allegations that suggested Ramirez was a gang member.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney Nick Brown said, "this settlement essentially gives Mr. Ramirez Medina a clean state as he works to obtain legal status in the United States."
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the settlement reached is not an admission of liability or fault.