PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Family members are trying to keep track of a local man arrested by immigration agents at Philadelphia International Airport last week after a 3 a.m. call telling them he was being moved 1,300 miles away.
Since Friday, Henry Diaz, 38, has been held at two different ICE detention centers since he was detained at the airport on Friday, where he and his husband, Jason Javie, had planned to board a plane to Kansas City for the Eagles/Chiefs game. Now, he’s reportedly on his way to a third.
Diaz has no criminal record and works in restaurant management, but he had a detention order since he came to the U.S. from El Salvador as a 17-year-old.
Javie visited Diaz and their attorneys on Monday at Moshannon Valley Processing Center in central Pennsylvania. They parted ways with plans to file a motion to get Diaz a hearing and to speak again soon.
Before dawn, however, Javie got a desperate call from Diaz.
“He was just woken up, and they were moving him. They were taking him. He didn't know where. He didn't have any details,” said Javie.
“After this very brief conversation, I heard in the background somebody yelling, ‘You got to go. You have to come now,’ words to that effect. And then the line went dead.”
Then the line went dead and Javie was left alone in his hotel room with his fears.
“You feel powerless, and you know, at the same time, you're scared to death because you don't know what's going on and you can't get anybody on the phone. There's … no way to answer the 35 questions that naturally you have when you get that kind of information or you learn that that's happening,” he said.
“And when you finally do start making some progress, it's just, ‘We're on to the next issue.’ Where is he going, what's happening?”
He was back at the facility hours later and was told they were putting Diaz on a bus to Louisiana, where there are nine privately-run camps. Now Javie waits to find out which of the camps is holding his husband. He wants to tell him, “Stay strong. I love you, and I'm not gonna stop fighting. We're gonna do everything we can.”
Legal experts said the government would have a possible advantage with cases filed by detainees held in Louisiana. Appeals would be heard by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is broadly considered the nation’s most conservative appeals court.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to a call for comment.