Sandra Castañeda won another of the legal battles she faced in the United States, this time against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency that refused to release her despite a judge’s order.
Castañeda spent 20 years in prison in California, accused of a crime that she did not commit, but to those years of legal struggle was added one more against ‘La Migra’, whose officers arrested her as soon as she was out of prison.
Now she can finally be released, after a judge Immigration will set a bond of $3,500 dollars to the immigrant of Mexican origin.
“Sandra complied 19 years in jail before being exonerated and being ordered released. Instead, the prison handed her over to ICE, which took her to a detention center in Georgia, where she has spent the last year,” confirmed Anoop Prasad.
The lawyer posted that message asking help to collect the $3,39 dollars for the bond. They got together in less than 10 hours.
Prasad posted another tweet where added that the rest of the money for Castañeda will be to send her to Mexico and pay for her re-entry process to the US
Prasad is an attorney with the Immigrant Rights Program of the organization Asian Law Caucus.
“As people across our state raise funds for their Californian partner to go home as soon as possible, we cannot forget that Sandra has been detained by ICE for more than a year. year,” he tweeted.
He explained that California transfers people to ICE after they have been paroled, served their sentences, been exonerated, or received vacations of their convictions.
For her part, Castañeda said she was grateful “for all those who have made phone calls, sent emails and are raising funds so that I can be released on bail.”
“Governor (of California) Gavin Newsom, the Board of Parole Hearings Conditional and now two Immigration judges have ruled that I should return home to Los Angeles with my family. All in all, there is no denying that ICE has decided to keep me in detention after 20 years of incarceration for a crime that I didn’t commit,” said the Mexican.
She added that justice will be achieved “when ICE no longer tears apart families like mine.”
Castañeda hoped to return to his home after her murder conviction was overturned by a court, but the illusion was dashed when she was detained for deportation under US priorities to expel immigrants deemed criminals.
More of 19 of the 20 years it has been incarcerated were for driving a car from where a shooting broke out that left one dead when she was taking some friends to buy food, and the rest in an immigration detention center in Georgia.
“Sandra was not involved in the shooting, did not touch a gun and had no idea the friend or he was going to shoot,” Prasad assured in a recent interview with Efe.
In 2021 a judge from California vacated Castañeda’s conviction based on a new state law that eliminated certain aggravated murder charges for people not directly responsible for deaths.
The immigrant had already achieved that in 2020 Governor Newsom commuted her sentence.
But when she thought she would return to freedom, ICE agents detained her to deport her to Mexico, considering her a “criminal ”, Prasad explained.
The Mexican, who came to the United States as a permanent resident when she was just a girl, ended up in the hands of ICE due to the controversial collaboration of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation with this federal agency.
With information from EFE