For one Western New York man, an ongoing 10-month stint in federal immigration detention began with a suburban ritual: browsing at a mall department store.
On a Saturday evening in February, JMA, as he’s identified in court filings, was looking at belts at a Macy’s in Cheektowaga, outside of Buffalo. A security guard accused him of trying to steal one of the belts; JMA replied that he was shopping and hoping to purchase it, according to a court petition his lawyers filed. The guard called the police, who took him to the station and charged him with petty larceny, a misdemeanor.
A Cheektowaga police officer told JMA, a Cuban citizen, that his supervisor said he had to “call Border Patrol for noncitizens,” according to the petition. JMA has a pending application for permanent residency under a special program for Cubans, but a Border Patrol agent arrested him anyway. JMA’s shoplifting charge was later dismissed, but he has been held in a federal immigration detention center in nearby Batavia since…