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WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. () — Longtime West Hollywood resident Alex Pereira-Alves has spent more than a month at the Adelanto Detention Center after reporting for what was described as a spontaneous immigration check-in at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in downtown Los Angeles.
During a video call last week, on his 34th day in detention, Pereira-Alves described feeling cut off from the outside world.
“I feel trapped,” he said.
Pereira-Alves, a legal Brazilian immigrant, reported to the ICE facility on Aug. 11. He said an official told him he could be deported under the current administration.
“One of them said, ‘Under this administration you are deportable.’ I said, ‘I can just buy a ticket and leave and go to Brazil, my country,’” Pereira-Alves said. “He said, ‘No, now we have to process you through the system.’ Then they handcuffed me, and the rest is history.”
The case became more complicated when Pereira-Alves faced the possibility of swift deportation to Equatorial Guinea. His immigration attorney, Jane Oak, immediately sought legal intervention.
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“I believe that injunction is what prevented him from getting removed to Equatorial Guinea,” Oak said.
Oak said Pereira-Alves has lived and worked legally in West Hollywood since 2018, when a judge granted a legal withholding on an order of removal from the country, as long as Pereira-Alves remained in good standing. Oak said Pereira-Alves has met that requirement.
The 2018 withholding that then allowed Pereira-Alves to stay and spared him from deportation back to Brazil is now trapping him in an immigration quagmire.
“He can’t get removed to that. Withholding removal prevents that. He does not want to go to Equatorial Guinea, and he can’t designate a third country and he can’t be released from detention either,” Oak said.
Pereira-Alves’ phone calls and legal filings are costing his friends who support him thousands of dollars. His continued detention also comes at a cost to taxpayers, said his friend Jeff Markwardt.
“Everything costs money, and as taxpayers, we’re footing his bill,” Markwardt said.
Markwardt said Pereira-Alves is fortunate to have people helping him, while many others in detention do not have the same resources.
“Alex is lucky to have the support around him, but a lot of these folks are the most low-income, disadvantaged folks in our society,” he said. “Even if they do have someone on the outside, do those people have the funds to contribute?”
Pereira-Alves remains in detention in limbo while his attorney navigates a federal immigration and court process that she said is overloaded and appears to be changing daily.
“I don’t really feel safe,” Pereira-Alves said. “I will probably only feel safe when I arrive in my country.”
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