A green card holder who has been in the United States for 20 years spent over a month in federal custody, according to KSL News.
Junior Dioses, a lawful permanent resident, was returning from a trip to Peru on April 28 when federal agents stopped him at a Texas airport. Dioses spent two days in custody at the airport, followed by 48 days detained at an
ICE facility in Conover, Texas.
"When I was there, I kept thinking every day, 'Why am I here?'" Dioses told KSL News.
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Federal immigration authorities pointed to two prior convictions, one for failing to stop for a police officer in 2006 and another for disorderly conduct in 2019, as grounds for deportation, according to KSL News.
The man's attorney argued that his client's record does not justify deportation under immigration law.
Adam Crayk, managing partner at Stowell Crayk, said that while permanent residents can be deported for offenses that meet certain legal criteria, Dioses' past charges fall short of that standard.
Crayk pointed out that existing case law makes it clear these offenses are not considered crimes involving moral turpitude.
He also criticized immigration authorities for pursuing deportation without fully understanding the law, saying they wrongly detained Dioses and started removal proceedings that should never have been initiated.
"Most people when they think of '(deporting) criminals' they don't think of Junior. They think of the guy selling drugs to our kids, that guy (who) murdered someone, that guy (who) engaged in horrific violent behavior," Crayk told KSL News. "Permanent residents can be deported ... if you do things that under our law qualify for deportable offenses."
"There's already case law that says these are not crimes involving moral turpitude," Crayk added. "Had anyone on the government side done the research, they would have known they had inappropriately incarcerated and inappropriately begun deportation proceedings against someone who should have never been in that type of position."
Under U.S. immigration law, any noncitizen convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude — if it was committed within five to ten years of admission and resulted in a sentence of at least one year in jail — can be deported. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services confirms that this standard is well established, with "extensive" case law describing moral turpitude as conduct so offensive that it "shocks the public conscience" and is "inherently base, vile, or depraved, contrary to the rules of morality and the duties owed between man and man, either one's fellow man or society in general."
Crayk said that Dioses' prior offenses do not meet this definition under the law. Although he filed a motion to end the deportation proceedings — which the government did not challenge — Dioses was still held for another week. Crayk says this extra time in custody was likely caused by bureaucratic uncertainty about a possible appeal that ultimately never happened.
