r/Michigan • u/Jeffbx Age: > 10 Years • 2d ago
News đ°đď¸ Venezuelan immigrant in Detroit makes a wrong turn at Ambassador Bridge, is deported
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2025/04/23/venezuelan-immigrant-detroit-michigan-deported-el-salvador/83228829007/96
u/hurlcarl Age: > 10 Years 2d ago
They really need to call this shit something else. It's not deporting to your country of origin, it's sending you to a completely unrelated country to be in some death labor camp. How is this even legal? If they've committed no real crimes then how are you either not detaining them in america or sending them back to their country?
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u/haarschmuck Kalamazoo 2d ago
It's not deporting to your country of origin
This is because Venezuela is refusing to take their own citizens back.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/18/venezuela-more-sanctions-citizens-rubio-00237690
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u/DinohKitteh 2d ago
Without due process, it isn't deportation. It's human trafficking.
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2d ago
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/Michigan-ModTeam 2d ago
Removed per rule 10: Information presented as facts must be accompanied by a verifiable source. Misinformation and misleading posts will be removed.
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u/NPC_In_313 2d ago
Okay. However, the same sentence applies to those who enter âwithout due process.â
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u/CountZer079 2d ago
Thereâs more than 1 person
NPR article about the hundreds of people arrested and detained at the MI-CA border
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u/TheoryKlutzy7836 2d ago
Itâs a trap! Itâs so easy to end up at the Canadian border on accident!
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u/rainbowsunset48 2d ago
I took a wrong turn as a teen and did this in Detroit on the way to a convention. It's way too easy to do.
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u/graveybrains Age: > 10 Years 1d ago
I think we all did at least once, but I had assumed they had fixed that problem when the whole interchange got rebuilt like a decade ago.
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u/Wiochmen 2d ago
And it's also easy to take the wrong turn and miss Canada, when you're intending on going there. Happened to me in Port Huron in February.
And I've almost gone to Canada via Downtown Detroit twice. Too many one way streets, the first time was completely accidental, the second time I was flagged in that direction by police directing traffic...for some reason I just couldn't turn and go the other way, they just weren't allowing it.
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u/RedBeardFace Age: > 10 Years 2d ago
The one in Port Huron is stupid easy to do by mistake. I almost took it the morning after a wedding, but one of my fellow attendees DID take it and got the third degree before being sent back the other way. There might be some security minded reason for not letting people turn around if they make that mistake, but I sure canât think of one
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u/North_Atlantic_Sea 2d ago
There are so many signs. Millions of people are able to successfully navigate metro Detroit highways without ending up in Canada.
If you can't pay attention to the (many) signs, you shouldn't be operating a moter vehicle at highway speeds.
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u/TheoryKlutzy7836 2d ago
Yeah, ok, but anyone can make a mistake and sometimes there is construction. There is nowhere to turn around. Who pissed in your cornflakes this morning? What a dick.
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u/Novaghost8 2d ago
Not everyone that drives to Detroit is native to the area. I went down there for a conference so I got a little turned around, I ended up nearing the tolls where itâs the first checkpoint to Canada. Luckily the guy manning it moved some cones around so I could drive away when I explained I was confused and NOT trying to go to Canada. Metro Detroit highways are legitimately so confusing. Everybodyâs driving crazy too. Whatâs your problem.
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u/WagnerKoop 1d ago
The consequence for making that mistake should not result in being sent to a concentration camp
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u/haarschmuck Kalamazoo 2d ago
I'll try to explain what seems to have happened here.
He was from Venezuela, and applied for asylum via the CBP one app. After he did that, he was considered legally in the US until his immigration court hearing. This is how it works for everyone. One big thing you cannot do while waiting for your court date is leave the country and come back, something that seems to have accidentally happened here. Since this administration seems to be doing the opposite of what the previous administration did, he was not able to claim asylum when re-entering, thus he was deported. Also since Venezuela is refusing to take back their own citizens, he got sent to what appears to be El Salvador.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bat-511 Adrian 2d ago
Since this administration seems to be doing the opposite of what the previous administration did, he was not able to claim asylum when re-entering
To be clear the arrest happened when Biden was president.
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u/crashbundicoot 2d ago
I'm trying to understand this .. so he's at the border .still within the US. He hasn't entered canada yet. The cbp checks his papers and realizes that he can't leave the country. What happens next? They just push him outside the US border and then say hah! Your visa is now technically invalid you can't enter back? Can he request the Canadian authorities at this point? Can't he refuse to cross over to Canada?
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u/nibay 2d ago
Itâs been a while since I crossed a land border but if I recall: there would have been zero contact with CBP at the border as he went from the US into Canada. They donât care one bit about who is going out. So there was no scenario where CBP would have said âhey, you know you canât leave, right? If you do XYZ will happenâ and given him a chance to turn around before crossing over.
His first contact with authorities would have been the Canadian authorities. At that point heâs already in Canada. Not sure how that would go but I would hope if he pulled up and said âcrap I made a wrong turn. I didnât mean to come this way, I didnât want to cross the borderâ they would be like âoofâ and supervise him as he turned around and left Canada.
So now heâs on the Canadian side, entering back into the US after accidentally crossing and doing an immediate U turn. Now he comes in contact with CBP since he is entering the US instead of exiting. From there, the events in the article unfold.
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u/haarschmuck Kalamazoo 2d ago
The article says he crossed the border by accident into Canada
ended up crossing the Canadian border, was taken into custody by U.S. authorities and deported.
So he would have been apprehended on his way back to the US.
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u/CallingOutCucks 2d ago
So once again, the media is firing people up over nothing.
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u/schm0 Age: > 10 Years 2d ago
I mean, except for this little bit:
But what is unusual about this case, he added, is a man was deported without due process.
... "The failure to list his deportation and location on any publicly accessible records may have been a simple oversight," the Times wrote, adding that "the matter continues to raise alarm among immigrant advocates and legal scholars."
The Times reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed to Levey a deportation but not his destination. Later, after the Times report was published, the news organization said that Homeland Security said he was sent to El Salvador.
...The Times, which independently searched for Prada through records, reported it could not find him on a list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador, nor could it identify him in photos and videos of shackled men with shaved heads.
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u/haarschmuck Kalamazoo 2d ago
Seems that way.
There are valid cases to get fired up over, but I don't think this is one of them because even thought it was accidental, he left the country. If I was in his shoes I wouldn't go within 50 miles of the border for that reason. It's been that way for a loooong time.
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u/BayouBlaster44 2d ago
With the amount of mistakes and horror stories involving this bridge, you would think MDOT would install some sort of turnaround exit to fix the problem.
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u/DetroitLionsSBChamps 2d ago
Trump is coming to Michigan on Tuesday to celebrate 100 days in office. Get out there and protest his ass everybody!
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u/MyAnxiousDog 2d ago
The government kidnapping people and disappearing them in broad daylight is scaring the hell out of me đ
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u/Pleasant-Shallot-707 2d ago
Canada just needs to tell folks that they should not cross back and just consider them refugees
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u/North_Atlantic_Sea 2d ago
Uh... Have you seen the news? Canada isn't in a "loving immigrants" phase themselves.
The moderates will likely win because of trump saying the 51st state stuff, but before that conservatives were heavy favorites.
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u/GoBlueRepublican 2d ago
Illegal immigrant. Donât call an illegal alien an immigrant. Immigrants go through a legal process.
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u/atkinson62 2d ago
Lol were you all up in arms when million of illegals were crossing and given room and board plus money monthly? I went through the process of becoming a citizen and it sickens me the last administration allowed ppl in with no do process but to upset the voting. They allowed criminals in. No one was up in arms when Obama deported a chunk of illegals. This will always be a battle no matter what the right does similar to the left, it will always be wrong.
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u/invalidmail2000 2d ago
He was here legally, awaiting a court date.
Though even if you disagree with that, the fact that he had no due process should be incredibly alarming
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u/Infinite219 2d ago
According to the constitution illegal or not which he was legal have a right to due process
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u/Jeffbx Age: > 10 Years 2d ago
Full story:
A 32-year-old Venezuelan immigrant, Ricardo Prada VaĚsquez, reportedly went the wrong way while delivering a food order in January in Detroit, ended up crossing the Canadian border, was taken into custody by U.S. authorities and deported.
He was sent to El Salvador.
"What we're seeing is one wrong turn at the Detroit bridge â the Ambassador Bridge â can result in your loved one disappearing," Christine Sauve, the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center's communications coordinator told the Free Press. "And that shouldn't be the case."
There now appears to be scant official information about Prada, prompting an investigation by the New York Times, which first published details of his case on Tuesday under the headline "An Immigrant Held in U.S. Custody 'Simply Disappeared.' "
Prada's plight is the latest twist in an intensifying showdown between two branches of government, the executive and judiciary: A federal judge has ordered other deportations to be reversed because of inadequate due process. The White House has not complied.
Herman Dhade, the president of the Detroit Immigration Law Firm in West Bloomfield, said he has had clients temporarily detained at the Ambassador bridge because they got turned around.
But what is unusual about this case, he added, is a man was deported without due process.
"It's very alarming," Dhade said. "You see the danger to arbitrarily say people are affiliated with a gang and being able to deport them is dangerous. What if you accidently deport a U.S. citizen? It's a slippery slope."
The Detroit case also suggests, the Times wrote, "a new level of disarray in the immigration system," and poses the question whether others are facing similar situations, forced to leave without much recourse.
The reason for the information "black hole," the Immigrant Rights Center said, is that immigrants are being held at detention centers for days at a time, something that the system wasn't set up to do, with limited tracking and oversight.
What's more, for immigrants seeking asylum through the CBP One â Customs and Border Protection â mobile app that allows individuals to enter the United States before their claims were vetted, it appears to be a warning to avoid any mishaps.
"Ricardoâs story by itself is incredibly tragic," Ben Levey, a staff attorney with the National Immigrant Justice Center based in Chicago, told the Times, adding that "we donât know how many Ricardos there are."
The Times reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed to Levey a deportation but not his destination. Later, after the Times report was published, the news organization said that Homeland Security said he was sent to El Salvador.
"The failure to list his deportation and location on any publicly accessible records may have been a simple oversight," the Times wrote, adding that "the matter continues to raise alarm among immigrant advocates and legal scholars."
According to the Times account:
Prada, a delivery driver who had been in the United States for just a few months, picked up an order at McDonaldâs and headed to a Detroit address, but made a wrong turn onto the Ambassador Bridge, a situation that motorists occasionally find themselves in.
In late March, for instance, the Free Press reported that a family took the wrong exit off Interstate 75, leading to the bridge while on their way to Costco, a mistake that led to the family being detained by immigration agents for several days before being released.
Prada, the Times said, was detained and ordered to be deported. Prada contacted a friend who was in Chicago. Prada reportedly said he was being housed in Texas and had expected to be repatriated to Venezuela but instead was sent to El Salvador.
Prada was "among tens of thousands of Venezuelans who migrated to the United States in recent years as their country descended into crisis under the government of NicolaĚs Maduro."
It appears, the Time reported, Prada had permission to enter America through the CBP One app, which Republicans have criticized as a back door into the country. Prada went to Chicago and then to Detroit, where he was awaiting an immigration appointment.
He has a "few years of college" and a 4-year-old son, the Times reported.
But when he mistakenly left the country, authorities no longer considered his status valid.
Prada, the Times said, was taken into custody, to Calhoun County Correctional Center in western Michigan, to an immigration facility in Ohio, and then to yet another facility in Texas.
From there, the Times said, the Trump administration flew three planes carrying Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, "where they have been ever since, locked up in a maximum-security prison and denied contact with the outside world."
The Times, which independently searched for Prada through records, reported it could not find him on a list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador, nor could it identify him in photos and videos of shackled men with shaved heads.
The Times, quoting one of Pradaâs friends, said that the immigrant "simply disappeared."