Estero student could face deportation under Trump order

An Estero High School student from Mexico who was arrested on suspicion of driving without a license could face deportation and become one of the latest targets of President Donald Trump’s stricter policies on undocumented immigrants.

Roberto Rodriguez, of Bonita Springs, was pulled over the evening of Feb. 2 in North Naples after a Collier County sheriff’s deputy said he was driving 95 mph in a 45 mph zone, according to a Sheriff’s Office arrest report.

While Trump has said his administration’s focus is on “bad dudes” who are in this country without documentation, Rodriguez, who turned 18 in December, had no prior arrests in Florida and is a nonviolent offender.

“We’re getting bad people out of this country, people that shouldn’t be, whether it’s drugs or murder or other things," Trump said last month.  "We’re getting bad ones out. Those are the ones that go first, and I said it from Day 1.”

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When the deputy asked Rodriguez for his driver’s license, the teenager said he did not have one because his immigration status made it impossible to get one.

Rodriguez was taken to the Naples Jail Center, assigned a public defender, paid the $500 bond for the misdemeanor charge and filed a written plea of not guilty.

On Feb. 7 he was transferred from the jail, arrest records show, apparently to immigration authorities.

Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Karie Partington declined to say where Rodriguez was transferred, citing privacy laws, but said “it would not be wrong” to infer that he was taken into custody by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Trump issued an executive order Jan. 25 with a renewed commitment to crack down on undocumented immigrants, regardless of the nature or seriousness of their offense. Trump's deportation priorities define a “removable alien” as someone who has been charged with “any criminal offense,” even if he or she has not been convicted, or someone who has committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense.

ICE spokeswoman Tammy Spicer said she could not comment on a specific case and declined to say whether Rodriguez was in custody.

“We aren’t able to release details on individuals at this time,” Spicer said in an email.

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Attempts to reach Rodriguez’s family at an address listed for them were unsuccessful.

The status of Rodriguez’s immigration case is unclear. Immigration court records are not open to public records disclosure. His local traffic case is pending, according to court records.

Rodriguez’s public defender said she could not comment on Rodriguez’s case without his permission. He is scheduled to appear in Collier County court on April 11 for a nonjury trial for his misdemeanor offense, according to court records.

Tammy Fox-Isicoff, an immigration attorney based in Miami and board member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said Rodriguez likely would not have been a priority for deportation under the Obama administration.

“You’re treating an 18-year-old with a driving arrest the same as someone with an arrest record for drug trafficking offenses,” Fox-Isicoff said. “How much better is the world off when an 18-year-old who is not a criminal gets arrested and faces deportation?”

In Collier County some deputies have been delegated the responsibilities of immigration officers under a program known as 287(g), which is a partnership between local law enforcement agencies and ICE.

The Sheriff’s Office is one of two Florida law enforcement agencies that participate in the program, which allows deputies to interrogate arrested immigrants about their status and prepare documents to start the process that may lead to their deportation.

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The Collier jail houses inmates with immigration holds after they post bail or serve their sentences for indefinite lengths of time until ICE can take them into custody.

The Department of Homeland Security called the program “a highly successful force multiplier” and hinted at encouraging its expansion in memos released last month. According to the DHS, there are 32 law enforcement agencies in 16 states that participate in 287(g).

A large majority of unauthorized immigrants come in contact with immigration officers after they are stopped or arrested for “simple traffic infractions,” said Antonio Revilla, a Miami-based immigration attorney and past president of the South Florida chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

“That’s how they would get a lot of people,” he said. “I would say like 80 percent of the people that are caught by immigration are usually because they’re in traffic accidents or they get stopped for simple traffic infractions and then the cops under 287(g) decide to call immigration.”

The path to a driver’s license for unauthorized immigrants in Florida used to be easier, but the enactment of a federal law that Florida complied with in 2010 has cut down on ways for them to legally drive in the state, Revilla said.

“It used to be simpler before, but now it’s pretty strict,” Revilla said. “It’s changed a lot.”

Before, one way unauthorized immigrants could receive a driver’s license was if they could show that they were the beneficiary of a family or employment-based petition filed on their behalf, Revilla said.

That changed with the passage of the Real ID Act, which was designed to battle identity theft and prevent undocumented immigrants and terrorists from getting official state identification cards.

Now, unauthorized immigrants have to show they adjusted their status to that of a permanent resident to obtain a license, Revilla said.

“You have to be in that position to be able to do that or be somebody who’s applying for asylum,” he said.

To Revilla, the benefits of providing unauthorized immigrants with better options to obtain driver’s licenses in Florida, outweigh any drawbacks.

“I think it’s better for everybody,” he said. “The U.S. government ever since 9/11 has always been talking about ‘We need to know where immigrants are. We need to know who they are so that we can keep track of them, et cetera.’ And the reality is that you can keep track of a lot more people if you were to issue driver’s licenses to everybody.”

Doing so could also make driving safer, Revilla said.

“I’d rather be hit or be in a car accident with somebody with a driver’s license, with insurance, and everybody’s better off,” he said.