Bishop Joseph Tyson of Yakima, Washington, is calling on federal authorities to release a local man who was taken into custody by immigration officers in mid-September.
According to local news reports and statements from diocesan officials, José López, an undocumented migrant from Mexico, was apprehended Sept. 11 by federal agents who stopped his vehicle in Yakima.
The agents said López matched the description of the previous owner of the vehicle he was driving. Though he was not the man the agents were looking for, López was still arrested — allegedly for not obeying the agents’ orders — and is now being held in a federal detention facility in Tacoma, Washington.
“There was a kind of racial profiling here,” Tyson told National Catholic Reporter in a recent phone interview where he said that the federal government should release López in the interest of justice.
“Mr. López runs a construction business. He has been operating legally in the state with no [criminal] record. He goes about his daily work and pays his taxes,” Tyson said.
In a video shared widely on social media, López is seen kneeling on the ground in a parking lot with his hands cuffed. The person recording the video asks him his name, to which López responds in Spanish: “I didn’t do anything. … They just came, stopped me, didn’t ask me anything.”
López’s son told the Yakima Herald-Republic that the agents broke two of the vehicle’s windows and removed his father, who experienced an eye injury, from the vehicle.
Tyson called for López to be released while preaching at Mass on Sept. 14, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, at St. Paul Cathedral in Yakima. In his homily, Tyson said López had worked in the United States for more than 20 years.
“If it is true that José López was wrongly identified, then morally speaking he should be released from detention,” Tyson said. “José López should be released immediately. He should be released now.”
Bp. Tyson is a good man. He used to be here in Seattle. I’ve met him a couple of times.
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