Garna Mejia is a reporter for KSL-TV
MILLCREEK — A Utah man is speaking out after spending nearly 50 days in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Texas, despite being a lawful U.S. resident. His attorney says the federal government got it wrong — and taxpayers footed the bill.
Junior Dioses, a Highland High School graduate, small business owner and father of five, was returning from a trip to Peru on April 28 when he was stopped by Customs and Border Protection agents at a Texas airport. What was supposed to be a routine entry turned into a nearly two-month ordeal, with two days spent in custody at the airport and 48 days at an ICE detention facility in Conover, Texas."When I was there, I kept thinking every day, 'Why am I here?'" Dioses said.Legal thresholdDioses, 39, has lived in the U.S. for over 20 years and holds a valid green card. But immigration officials flagged two prior convictions — a 2006 failure to stop for a police officer and a 2019 disorderly conduct charge — as grounds for deportation."Most people when they think of ' criminals' they don't think of Junior. They think of the guy selling drugs to our kids, that guy murdered someone, that guy engaged in horrific violent behavior," said Dioses' attorney, Adam Crayk. "Permanent residents can be deported … if you do things that under our law qualify for deportable offenses."However, Crayk, managing partner at Stowell Crayk, said Dioses' previous charges do not meet the legal threshold for deportation under immigration law."There's already case law that says these are not crimes involving moral turpitude," Crayk explained. "Had anyone on the government side done the research, they would have known they had inappropriately incarcerated and inappropriately begun deportation proceedings against someone who should have never been in that type of position."A section of U.S. law states any noncitizen who "is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude" committed within five to 10 years and sentenced to at least one year in prison is deportable.According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Crayk is correct — an "extensive" case law defines moral turpitude as "conduct that shocks the public conscience as being inherently base, vile, or depraved, contrary to the rules of morality and the duties owed between man and man, either one's fellow man or society in general."Despite filing a motion to termina
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