Pedro Guzman

Pedro Guzman (also known as Peter Guzman) is a U.S. citizen who was illegally deported to Mexico by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) in May 2007. He spent 85 days in Mexico before successfully returning to his American family in the United States. Guzman's lawyers filed a lawsuit on February 27, 2008, against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the ICE,

History According to court documents, Guzman was born in Los Angeles, California, to Maria Carbajal, a citizen of Mexico and a lawful permanent resident of the United States. The two have made a couple of short trips to Mexico but resided most of their life in the Los Angeles area. Guzman was unemployed due to an illness. His mother worked at a Jack in the Box restaurant.

Sometime prior to 2008, Guzman was arrested for trespassing in a Lancaster airport, where he attempted to board a private airplane, and was subsequently sentenced to 120 days in a Los Angeles County jail (later reduced to 40 days). During custody, a sheriff's department employee erroneously reported him to the ICE as a non-citizen, despite both departmental records and a statement Guzman made at booking identifying him as a US citizen. Based on that oral statement, he was deported to Tijuana, Mexico, and given $3 to survive with. Using a stranger's cell phone, Guzman made a call to his brother's wife in the United States explaining his deportation, but the call was disconnected. In June 2007, while Guzman was still in Mexico, his family filed a lawsuit to attempt to force the US government to aid in their search for him. The suit was unsuccessful and Guzman's mother, Maria Carbajal, proceeded to search for him herself. She traveled to Tijuana and spent several days in the area looking for him, cooking for workers in a banana warehouse in exchange for shelter in a back room there. The case was filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California (CDCA) and assigned to District Judge George H. King. An ICE statement claimed that Guzman's case was "one-of-a-kind". The ACLU, however, claimed "ICE lacks even rudimentary safeguards against erroneous determinations." Mead said the ICE is "reviewing its policies and procedures to determine if even greater safeguards can be put in place to prevent the rare instance where this event occurs" and that the process will be completed by May 13, 2008 (90 days from the February 13 hearing).

Guzman has been alleged to be mentally ill Carbajal was quoted as saying, in Spanish, "Sometimes [Guzman] disconnects from reality. He was like that before, but he's worse now."