I read the stories on this by Daniel Hernandez at LA Weekly... http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/lost-in-tijuana/16817/ and http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/pedro-guzmans-return/16956/ . They are very well-written. This is an amazing story. It should be turned into a movie. Now that the family is reunited I hope Pedro Guzman receives the aid and therapy he needs to recover.

It sounds like he had some kind of severe nervous breakdown that led to the original arrest. On top of that are the months he has spent in a state of panic living in ditches. He is going to need a lot of help.

Really unconscionable and tragic, what he had to go through, but I'm so happy to hear that he has been found.

He is, indeed, going to need a lot of help.

We're only shocked at the unexpected. This is not that shocking. It is sad that this type of governmental and judicial behavior is more representative of the norm than the exception. In a country where more than one set of laws exists, and varies depending on your economic status, shade of skin, sexual preference, education, social strata, and, of course, power......... inequities are too commonplace.
Case in point...........compare Mr. Guzman's original sentence of 40 days (reduced from 120) for trespassing and spray painting junk. I see sentences like this and am reminded of my little community (200,000 pop.) where not too many years have passed since an Asst D.A., while driving drunk, killed two children walking along the side of the road. Guilty verdict, no time was served.

What IS positive? Even though situations like this are all to common, outrage can still be found and expressed. Spreading humanity spreads the outrage.

you are absolutely right. it's not shocking, sadly, in and of itself. this post was mostly to follow up on a story i know we all had been paying attention to. when he was first deported. i actually never posted on it, tho i linked to it a few times.

however, there is, i hope you agree, a big difference in crimes. i mean you make good points otherwise, but it's really a hard to compare manslaughter of children with stupid trespass/vandalism stuff. it's just skews everything as soon as you throw that in. leniency for dumbshit we can understand. but we can argue all night on killing kids while drunk driving. that's heavy. that's emotional stuff, that's very irreparable stuff.

I picked up my story from some other newspapers, so don't know if people caught the fact that Pedro's mother -- NOT a wealthy person -- exhausted her own funds looking for him in Tijuana. She, and other family members, basically had to camp out in cars, warehouses, etc. during the search.

Of course, this wouldn't have happened had Pedro been "white" or spoken English, but there is a crying need for law enforcment people to get better training in mental health... someone should have realized this guy shouldn't have been in jail in the first place.

Did you read the Gomez Penia story about the time he and his kid got detained?

Scenario: he meets up for lunch in San Diego with his ex wife (Anglo) to pick up the kid (blond). So she brings the kid and they all have lunch and he leaves with the kid. They have all requisite documents on them.

The restaurant, however, decides that, because this is interracial, the two adults must be a kidnapping ring and calls police, who chase him and the kid, put them in detention. Police do not believe the papers they have. Finally they get out by locating the ex wife who has to come down and swear up and down that this is legit.

I am absolutely sickend by this story, it proves what I have been saying all along this whole "immigration" issue is about all my brown peeps.
If the blonds/anglo were jumping over from Canada there would be no issue at all and they would be quite welcomed.
I have cousins from Mexico who have emmigrated to Canada and have been totally welcomed and are working and thriving there with there families.
Why can't the people here have that same attitude? What the hell is it with everybody hating the brown man? I cannot understand this way of thinking.
Hell we cannot even get mentioned in Ken Burns upcoming WAR documentary on PBS in September! For those of you who do not about this issue please go to DefendtheHonor.org and see if that doesn't make you sick.....
Brown and Proud.......mhg

I'm glad to hear that Mr. Guzman has been found and returned to his family. I'm also pleased that Judge Pregerson saw through the BS and realized that helping the Guzman family find Pedro would be the right thing to do. No big surprise that the US goverment didn't actually bother to do that.

I'm troubled by the ICE and the sheriff's department's assertions that "procedures were followed" and that "ICE has no reason to believe that it improperly removed Pedro Guzman." It sounds like they're saying 'you ain't got no papers, Pedro, so you're goin' acrost the border.' But without evidence that Pedro was actually a Mexican citizen, ICE could have easily been committing a felony in Mexico (illegal immigration), and in retrospect, that's exactly what they did.

Since so many of our less tolerant friends and neighbors have been screaming about illegal immigration being a violation of the law (and how lawbreakers must be punished), I'm sure they won't object when the ICE officers and sheriff's deputies who were involved in Mr. Guzman's deportation get rounded up and locked up in the city pokey down in Tijuana, there to await their trial before the Mexican authorities.

Nez:

Have the knuckleheads quit reading your blog?

Usually, whenever you put something like this up, they start sniffing around and then putting up comments about how it's not about RACE!!! Maybe you should have put up another one of those posts featuring Ms. Jolie--no, better--Julia Roberts looking for her addle-pated brother Chris after he's been deported to Mexico. But, then again, Julia's not a blond so it's a harder sell.

You just ever get to something that is so beyond your scope of horrible where you go

FIX IT.

FIX IT

OR ELSE.

That's how I felt about this one.

They had to find him alive or I was just gonna lose all faith in humanity.

Now while I'm not usually one for retributive suing.

Please god let his family sue the ever living shit out of everyone involved two times over