Lawyer says arrest of ‘mariachi family’ should’ve never happened

The lawyer for a member of McAllen High School’s mariachi on Tuesday discussed how he helped get him released from an ICE detention facility and what he endured in this Border Report Live exclusive. Efrén Olivares, of the National Immigration Law Center, tells South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez and host Rudy Mireles how Antonio Gamez-Cuellar, 18, was arrested with his two younger brothers, Caleb, 14, and Joshua, 12. Their parents, Emma Guadalupe Cuellar Lopez, and Luis Antonio Gamez Martinez, also were detained when the family went to a mandatory meeting with U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement officials on Feb. 25, he said. Olivares says normally the children did not attend these ICE check-ins. But on this day, ICE officials required the entire family to be present. “And when they showed up, they arrested all five of them without any justification, without giving them a reason and no change in circumstances whatsoever,” Olivares said. Because Antonio is an adult, he was separated from his family and held at the El Valle Detention Family in Raymondville, Texas. The others were held about 215 miles away at the ICE facility in Dilley, Texas