DACA Recipient Taken Into Custody By Immigration

He was meant to be safe. That's what he was promised: Work hard, don't get a criminal record, and you'll be safe. You'll be allowed to stay. That was before. Everything changed once President Trump took office and began enforcing his strict immigration policies, however, and now we are hearing about Daniel Ramirez Medina, a 23-year-old "Dreamer" who was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs officers last week.

According to a report by Reuters, Medina, who has no criminal record, was taken into custody last week in Seattle and is now being detained in Tacoma, Washington. He was previously given temporary permission to stay in the United States by that DACA program under the Obama administration. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was put in place in 2012, and offered children who had been brought into the country illegally a chance to continue to work and live in the only place they have known as a home.

Under this program, people can work to provide a life for themselves and their families. They can look towards the future, they can "dream." Which is why these people, around 750,000 of them across the United States, are referred to as DREAMers. They were supposed to be protected. So how is that Daniel Ramirez Medina and his father were both arrested?

Ethan Dettmer, one of the lawyers representing Medina and his father, told Reuters that he hoped this arrest was "a mistake." He also reported that, as far as he was aware, Medina was the only DREAMer to be arrested so far.

While the Trump administration has detained and arrested hundreds of immigrants in the last week, many thought recipients of the DREAMers program would be relatively safe. In fact, Trump spoke to ABC News in January to reassure people that:

We're going to take care of everybody. Where you have great people who are here [and] who have done a good job — they shouldn't be worried.

House Speaker Paul Ryan went on the record with Greta Van Susteren as well to say that DREAMers specifically should feel safe, despite the stringent, erratic new immigration policies coming out of the White House:

They don't have to worry. We're focused on physical security of the border, we're focused on those who are coming to do us harm, from terrorist states and [...] violent criminals.

Of course, we have no idea what is happening with Daniel Ramirez Medina. We don't know his story, because he is being detained and so cannot tell us. U.S. Customs and Immigration officials have refused to comment on the arrest, another sign that does not bode well for the future.

All one can say is this: It's been less than a month since President Trump went on television and swore the DREAMers were safe. And now one of them has been arrested along with his father. Everyone, it seems should remain vigilant, whatever happens next.