Before sunrise last October 22nd, a Venezuelan Lyft driver got arrested and detained by ICE agents outside the main terminal of Nashville International Airport.
The guy was using the name Samuel, and reportedly also used to work as a barber. He was also 32 years old, with the legal name Salin Ramos, and was working with his partner to live by each day.
Do ICE officials have the right to arrest anybody they think is “breaking the law”? Nevertheless, sometimes ridesharing drivers report that passengers are in cahoots or connivance with each other, and even passengers can become criminals.
Luisito, a driver for InDrive, told Ridesharingforum.com how his friend experienced bringing what he tagged as “syndicate” to their destination. Yes, as passengers. He narrated how that driver, not him, took these passengers to a remote location, a warehouse, and these passengers were carrying taped boxes containing unknown goods to him.
Right as his friend dropped these people off the warehouse, the passengers, consisting of six individuals, threatened his driver-friend not to look around or back, and not to get any more passengers, and instructed him to go straight home. The passengers gave him triple the fare.
While there were no weapons as told by Luisito, it is clear that the passengers is hiding their “illicit acts.” So, if ICE has a right to arrest individuals? Probably.
“He is well-known there for being a good person,” Samuel’s partner stated. “He just told me that he was picked up by immigration and asked me to take good care of the girls.”
ICE’s spokeswoman Melissa Egan confirmed that ICE indeed arrested Salin Dahel Ramos Alvarez for being a suspected terrorist gang member of Tren de Aragua during a targeted enforcement operation. So, this is different because it is the driver who is engaged in illicit acts.
However, this was not the first-time he got into an encounter with authorities, as he was previously also detained by United States Border Patrol last August 29th after entering the country illegally in El Paso, Texas. This was during the Democrat Biden administration.
But now, he’s being involved into another detainment, but this time for his alleged links to a terrorist group. ICE, however, wasn’t able to cite evidence of ties between him and the Tren de Aragua group, nor he does not have any criminal record in Nashville.
He was arrested as he was taking a woman to the airport.
“It was so early in the morning that I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings like I normally would, so I don’t know if they were following us from my house,” the woman told RSF correspondents. “I don’t know where these agents came from.”
She said she looked at Ramos Alvarez and asked if he was okay before asking the agents where they were taking him.
“Nashville,” one told her. “Do you want to go with him?”
That was how stringent were the ICE officials. She was completely in shock. The story is open-ended.
ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It is a USA federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security. ICE enforces immigration laws, investigates cross-border crimes, combats human trafficking and smuggling, and detains or deports individuals violating immigration regulations. Its operations frequently generate political and human rights debates. Tune in to RSF for more news like this. Okay, ‘til then, and happy holidays, and happy New Year!