SEATTLE (AP) — The U.S. government has agreed to pay $400,000 and apologized to an American citizen and Army veteran from Washington state who was locked up for seven months while immigration officials tried to deport him.
Rennison Castillo was detained in 2005 when he finished serving a jail sentence for violating a protection order and harassment. The native of Belize explained repeatedly that he had become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1998 while serving in the Army. He was finally released after the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and Seattle attorneys took up his case on appeal.
Last year a federal judge denied the government’s motion to dismiss Castillo’s claims. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it now vets the citizenship claims of detainees much more closely.
