In a first public appearance since his release from the Adelanto Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center, Narciso Barranco had a message for the families of other men he met while he was detained.
“They have faith, they miss you deeply, and even in a place like that, hope is still alive,” he said during a press conference hosted Friday, July 25, by Second District OC Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento and the Orange County Rapid Response Network.
Barranco, 48 of Tustin, was detained by immigration enforcement officials on June 21, as he worked a landscaping job in Santa Ana. In a video posted to social media, he is seen being hit multiple times in the head and taken with force by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents – Border Patrol officials later accused Barranco of swinging his weed whacker at agents and refusing to comply with authorities.
Less than two weeks after his release from the Adelanto center, Barranco shared a raw, emotional message from the steps of the old Santa Ana courthouse, choking back tears as he spoke before television cameras.
“To the authorities, I respectfully ask, please grant them bond. Don’t take away the chance for these families to be reunited,” he said of other undocumented immigrants who have been detained, such as his “former cellmates at Adelanto, including Emilio Martínez, Lazaro Loya, Edgar Leonidas, and so many others.”
He said Martinez has a 4-year-old daughter he “adores with all his heart” and Loya’s son lives with a disability and needs his father.
Barranco referred to an internal July 8 memo from ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, to the agency’s employees. The memo said, effective immediately, detainees would be ineligible for a bond hearing and could not be released unless granted an exception by the Homeland Security Department, the Associated Press reported.
Barranco’s own release was delayed. The father of three U.S. Marines was scheduled to be released on bond July 11, but was held for five more days, due to significant system delays.
He had been in the process of applying for parole-in-place, which allows undocumented family members of active-duty military to stay in the U.S. for at least a year and could be extended, his son, Marine veteran Alejandro Barranco, said in a previous interview.
Over the last 30 days, Barranco’s attorney Lisa Alvarez said she has witnessed not only “a blatant disregard for our Constitution” but an “institutional, intentional erosion of these rights and protections.” She said it took eight days for the court to accept her appearance and process the bond motion. Even once Barranco’s bond was granted, it still took more than 24 hours and six phone calls for the court to upload the judge’s order.
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“There are thousands of hardworking individuals who have been here for decades with U.S. citizen family members and no criminal history that are being unjustly incarcerated and will have no opportunity for bond due to recent policy and legal interpretation, subjecting those who pose no danger to society, who are not a flight risk, to mandatory detention,” Alvarez said.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said at the time the memo became public that “many loopholes” had been used by the previous administration to release undocumented immigrants and the current administration is “now enforcing this law as it was actually written to keep America safe.”
Occasionally breaking into tears or pausing to collect himself, a central theme of Barranco’s message on his release was focused on gratitude. First to God, then to the public for its “immense support,” to his attorney who translated his Spanish statements into English, to his wife and children, to the Orange County Rapid Response Network, local leaders, and many others.
“To my community, I don’t have the words to truly express what I feel in my heart. So I humbly say, thank you for standing with my family and children. For not leaving them alone,” he said in Spanish. He also said his story is just one of many to be told.
Earlier this week, Alejandro Barranco addressed Democratic members of the House Committee on Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., about his father’s experience.
His father’s upcoming hearing is scheduled for August at the Santa Ana immigration courthouse.
