Ramon Morales-Reyes, a 54-year-old Milwaukee, Wisconsin man facing deportation, was just moments away from posting bond and being released. He now finds himself in removal proceedings. During the detention hearing on April 22, Judge Carla Espinoza found that Morales-Reyes does not pose a danger to the community while his case is pending. He was arrested by Homeland Security after the Department received allegations that he mailed a handwritten letter. The similar letter threatened to shoot President Trump with the president’s own address on the return address.
It’s hard to believe Morales-Reyes has had such a complicated legal history. Since this 1996 arrest, he was arrested 56 additional times with only one conviction on disorderly conduct. Aside from multiple arrests for various other offenses throughout the years. None of these were enough to issue serious convictions beyond a disorderly conduct charge. He lives in Pasadena with his wife and three kids. His possible removal from the country is fraught with profound questions.
The Homeland Security probe of Morales-Reyes took national spotlight. This occurred shortly after Secretary Kristi Noem brought his case to national attention in a press statement. Morales-Reyes could have been first accused of being an “illegal alien.” The tide turned big time once it realized that those allegations came from all that fake news. Demetric Scott had accused him of involvement in a plot against him, but subsequent questioning by Milwaukee police indicated issues with these claims.
Morales-Reyes stood next to his attorney as he appeared in court remotely from the Harris County jail. The judge seemed familiar with the conditions of his confinement at the Dodge County Jail. Judge Espinoza’s decision is a sign of increasing consciousness of the imbrications at play in immigration enforcement. It highlights the need to critically assess each case on its own merits.
If Morales-Reyes can’t make bond, he will have to return to court again on July 10. As this case illustrates, deeply-felt tensions over immigration policy continue to roil the United States. It especially seems to articulate the harsh enforcement priorities on undocumented people that defined the Trump administration.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin commented on the situation, stating, “While this criminal illegal alien is no longer under investigation for threats against the President, he is in the country illegally with previous arrests for felony hit and run, criminal damage to property, and disorderly conduct with domestic abuse.”
McLaughlin further added, “The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law and fulfilling the President’s mandate to deport illegal aliens. DHS will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of illegal aliens who have no right to be in this country.”
With this case progressing at lightning speed. It obscures troubling questions about the practices underlying immigration enforcement and how we treat the individuals it too often ensnares. Morales-Reyes’s uncertain future Morales-Reyes’s future is unclear as he faces these serious legal challenges.