On the day that Brian Ernesto Villalta-Ramos had a scheduled appointment at the Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in October, family members told him to skip the appointment to eliminate the risk of being arrested. He refused.
He had arrived in Dallas from El Salvador in 2024 – along with his girlfriend and her two daughters – and all of them filed for asylum less than a year after arriving, as generally required by federal law.
While he was at the office, Villalta-Ramos called his girlfriend, Danisela Gaitan. She said he told her he had been arrested. Villalta-Ramos had no criminal record and no pending criminal charges…