Attorneys for a man who was arrested and taken to a hospital by Border Patrol officers in Maine are dropping a petition they filed in federal court after the agency disclosed where he’s being held.
Humberto L. Cachimuel Alfusi, 57, was arrested near Fort Fairfield on July 16, according to a habeas corpus petition his lawyers filed in U.S. District Court in Maine on Monday. The petition, which sought Cachimuel’s release and information on his whereabouts, named several officials from U.S. Customs and Border Protection as respondents.
For nearly a week, the petition stated, Cachimuel’s family had no idea where he was being held. They were informed Saturday he was at a hospital for his diabetes, but Cachimuel’s lawyers say the CBP employee refused to say where he was being treated.
Cachimuel was transferred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s custody on Tuesday. He is now at a correctional facility in Plymouth, Massachusetts, according to his family and lawyers. Because of his transfer to ICE, the attorneys have now filed a motion to drop the petition and are preparing for his next hearing with an immigration judge.
“At this point, our first priority is just getting our client released,” Cachimuel’s attorney Carl Hurvich said Thursday.
Cachimuel has lived in the United States for more than 20 years, according to the petition, arriving on a visitor’s visa. His attorneys filed a copy of an approved I-130 petition from 2005, which is filed by relatives who are U.S. citizens to begin to process of getting a green card. His 6-year-old daughter is also a U.S. citizen, according to the petition.
Hurvich said he was disturbed by how long U.S. Customs and Border Protection held Cachimuel, adding that he’s seen several cases where people “are being detained for prolonged periods by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.” Unlike ICE, Hurvich said, CBP has generally taken “the position that they don’t have to provide any access to counsel or family.”
Hurvich said CBP had paperwork prepared on July 16, the same day of Cachimuel’s arrest, to transfer him to ICE custody.
“For some reason, they kept him all that week,” Hurvich said.
A spokesperson for CBP did not respond requests for information about Cachimuel’s case.