LAKEWOOD, Wash., Feb. 24 (UPI) -- The U.S. government has paid an Army veteran $400,000 for wrongfully keeping him in an immigration lockup for more than seven months, officials said.
Additionally, Rennison Vern Castillo, a naturalized U.S. citizen, received an official apology from the government, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Castillo, 33, of Lakewood, Wash., sued officials at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's Northwest Detention Center, where he was detained as a suspected illegal immigrant.
"I believe that none of my clients would ever have wanted to, or knowingly would have, detained a veteran and United States citizen," Philip H. Lynch, chief of the civil division in the U.S. attorney's office wrote in a letter to Castillo. "We very much regret that you were detained".
Castillo was born in Belize and came to the United States with his mother as a child. He became a naturalized citizen in 1998 while in the Army.
Officials said paperwork errors resulted in Castillo being detained in the immigration lockup after he was released from serving a jail term in Washington for a felony count of harassing an ex-girlfriend.
Castillo said he repeatedly told immigration officers he was a naturalized citizen.
"They were disrespectful and told me that I would say anything to get out of detention," Castillo said in a statement. "It was a nightmare".
The legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, which represented Castillo, said the government should be more careful before it tries to deport people.
"It is important that the government recognized that closer attention must be paid to these cases, as it is simply inexcusable to have U.S. citizens locked up and placed in removal proceedings," said Matt Adams.
An ICE spokeswoman said the agency has changed its procedures to prevent future mistakes. UPI
