On January 9th, immigration officials detained a man named Arnoldo after he dropped off his 10 year old daughter Karla at Logan Elementary in Spokane. Originally from Guatemala, Arnoldo and Karla have lived in Spokane since 2019. The pair had an ongoing asylum case at the time of their detainment, and Arnoldo has no criminal record. Karla and Arnoldo were taken from their city and sent to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas.
Karla is one of over 1700 children that have been taken by immigration enforcement since the spring of 2025, including 5 year old Conejito Liam who was taken into ICE custody during an immigration sweep in Minnesota the same month Karla was detained. He was on his way home from preschool. These politely named "family detention centers" are already the subject of multiple lawsuits citing unethical treatment and unsanitary conditions: Food contaminated with worms and mold. Limited access to clean drinking water. Inadequate medical care.
Karla and her Dad were set to face a hearing with one of the strictest immigration judges in the country, Veronica Marie Segovia. Segovia, who was appointed as an immigration judge in November 2023, is known for denying immigrants asylum in the U.S., and more often than other immigration judges across the board.
Segovia denied a Turkish immigrant’s asylum case in 2025, despite the Department of Homeland Security stating the immigrant had met the legal requirements for asylum. Segovia suggested the immigrant’s violent torture in Turkey was “not as bad” as the report states. Of 193 asylum cases Segovia heard up through the end of November 2025, she granted full asylum once. Once.
And to our credit as a community, Spokane showed up. We rallied, petitioned and donated. We did not let this beautiful kid fade from the spotlight. And through our unity and the unfailing support & advocacy of amazing local organizations, especially Latinos en Spokane, Karla and her dad were released on February 6th. This is the power of united community in the face of evil.
But Karla's fight is not over. These two returned to Spokane to find that their landlord had thrown away everything they owned, including Karla's clothes. They are staying in a motel while attempting to find housing near Logan Elementary, and while this is the most recent example of injustice that continues even after successful liberation it is not the only case.
I have a friend, José, who was a DACA recipient. DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, but many folks know DACA recipients as Dreamers. The DREAM Act was a bipartisan effort that was finally passed in 2012, and granted folks that came to the United States as children the ability to live and work with temporary yet renewable legal status. That meant that he had a SSN that allowed him to work and obtain a driver's license. Past tense.
DACA and the 800,000+ immigrant youth and young adults it protected have been under attack since 2017, and DACA status was ruled as no longer counting as "legal presence" under federal law in mid 2025. People like José were barred from receiving benefits from most programs that use federal funding, like health insurance plans on federal and state exchanges- including here in Washington State, widening the coverage gap. And José who came here from Guatemala as a child was taken into ICE custody in October 2025 after a routine traffic stop while driving- with a license that was valid to the best of his knowledge. José was shuffled to several different federal immigrant detention centers across the country while immigration lawyers working on his case were denied meetings with him. He spent his 24th birthday in a detention facility before finally being released right before Christmas. He came back to Spokane to find that he no longer had a place to call home.
Another woman we'll call María arrived back in Spokane last month after several months of detention at the ICE facility in Tacoma with nowhere to stay- no car, no job, no possessions.
María and Arnoldo are still being actively monitored by ICE with ankle monitors. José has a tracking app on his phone and is required to respond to a weekly check in text with a photo and location information.
To remain in compliance, José must respond to that text within 30 seconds or receive a strike. Three strikes, and he faces re-arrest. José's cousin and fellow DACA recipient was detained at his required immigration check in a few weeks ago, and has not yet been released.
Karla & Arnoldo, José and María are back in Spokane- but we need to show up.
We welcome people, that's what we do. Come on, let's go.
Vámonos juntos- para Karla, y para todos.
