WASHINGTON — No one seems to know what happened to Vicente Ventura Aguilar.
The witness told his brother and attorneys that the 44-year-old Mexican immigrant, who has no legal immigration status, was taken into immigration custody Oct. 7 in South Los Angeles and suffered a medical emergency.
But more than six weeks have passed since then, and Ventura Aguilar's family still has not heard from him.
The Department of Homeland Security reported that 73 people from Mexico were arrested in the Los Angeles area between October 7 and 8.
“None of them were Ventura Aguilar,” said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for public affairs.
“For the record, detained illegal immigrants have access to telephones to contact family members and lawyers,” she added.
McLaughlin did not answer questions about what the agency did to determine whether Ventura Aguilar was ever in custody, such as checking for anyone with the same date of birth, variations of his name or identifying detainees who received medical attention near the California border around Oct. 8.
Lindsey Toczylovsky, co-founder of the Immigrant Advocates Law Center who is representing Ventura Aguilar's family, said DHS never responded to her requests about him.
The family of Vicente Ventura Aguilar, 44, says he has been missing since Oct. 7, when a friend saw him arrested by federal immigration agents in Los Angeles. Department of Homeland Security officials say he was never in their custody.
(Family of Vicente Ventura Aguilar)
“There is only one agency that has the answers,” she said. “Their refusal to give this family answers, their refusal to give answers to his lawyers, says something about the lack of care and cruelty of the moment for DHS.”
His family and lawyers contacted local hospitals and the Mexican consulate without success. They enlisted the help of Rep. Sidney Kamlager-Dove's (D-Los Angeles) office, which called the Los Angeles and San Diego county medical examiner's offices. No one had anyone matching his name or description.
The Los Angeles Police Department also told Kamlager-Dove's office that he was not in their system. His brother, Felipe Aguilar, said the family filed a missing person's report with the Los Angeles Police Department on Nov. 7.
“We are sad and worried,” Felipe Aguilar said. “He's my brother and we miss him here at home. He's a very good man. We just hope to God that he's alive.”
Felipe Aguilar said his brother, who has lived in the U.S. for about 17 years, left home about 8:15 a.m. Oct. 7 to catch a bus for an interview for a sanitation job when he ran into friends on the corner near a local liquor store. He had his phone, but he forgot his wallet at home.
One of those friends told Felipe Aguilar and his lawyers that he and Ventura Aguilar were detained by immigration agents and then placed in B-18, a holding facility in a federal building in downtown Los Angeles.
The next day, the friend was deported to Tijuana. He spoke to the family by phone from Mexico.
Detainees in B-18 have limited access to telephones and lawyers. Immigrants usually do not appear in Immigration and Customs Enforcement Online Search Engine until they arrive at the detention center.
According to Felipe Aguilar and Tochilovsky, the friend said Ventura Aguilar began shaking, lost consciousness and fell to the ground while restrained Oct. 8 at a facility near the border. His face began to bleed from the blow.
The friend said that the facility staff called an ambulance and transferred the remaining detainees to another room. Tochilovsky said that was the last time anyone saw Ventura Aguilar.
She said the rapid timeline between Ventura Aguilar's arrest and his disappearance is symbolic of what she sees as a widespread lack of due process for people in government custody under the Trump administration and shows that “we don't know who is being deported from the United States.”
Felipe Aguilar said he called his brother on his cellphone after learning of the arrests, but the call went straight to voicemail.
Felipe Aguilar said that although his brother is generally healthy, he saw a cardiologist a couple of years ago about chest pain. He took the prescribed medications and his condition improved.
His family and lawyers said Ventura Aguilar may have given immigration agents a false name when he was arrested. Some detainees give the wrong name or alias, which explains why he was never listed in Department of Homeland Security records. Tochilovsky said federal agents sometimes misspell the name of the person they take into custody.
Vicente Ventura Aguilar, who went missing Oct. 7, had lived in the United States for 17 years, his family said.
(Family of Vicente Ventura Aguilar)
But she said the agency should make a serious effort to find him, such as using biometrics or a photo of him.
“To me, this is another symptom of the chaos of the immigration system that's going on right now,” she said of problems accurately identifying detainees. “And this is what happens when you indiscriminately, racially profile people, pick them up on the street and hold them in substandard conditions, and then deport people without due process. Mistakes are made. Right now we want to know what mistakes were made here, and where is Vicente now?”
CCTV footage from a nearby business verified by MS NOW shows Ventura Aguilar on the sidewalk five minutes before masked agents begin making arrests in South Los Angeles. The footage does not show him being arrested, but two witnesses told the outlet they saw agents handcuff Ventura Aguilar and place him in a van.
In a letter sent to DHS leaders on FridayKamlager-Dove asked what steps DHS had taken to determine whether anyone matching Ventura Aguilar's identification had been detained in the past month, and whether the agency had documented any medical events or hospital transfers involving people taken into custody around Oct. 7-8.
“Given the length of time that has passed since Mr. Ventura Aguilar disappeared, and the legitimate concerns that he may have been misidentified, injured, or otherwise missing during enforcement actions, I strongly request that DHS and ICE conduct an immediate and comprehensive review by November 29,” Kamlager-Dove wrote in her letter.
Kamlager-Dove said her most common immigration requests from constituents are for help with visas and passports.
“Never in all my years did I expect to get a call about a person who had completely disappeared from the face of the earth, and never did I think that I would have to not just call ICE and Border Patrol, but check hospitals, check LAPD and check morgues to find a voter,” she said. “It’s terrible and completely dystopian.”
She said families across Los Angeles deserve answers and need to know if something like this could happen to them.
– Who else is missing? she said.
