Padres Minor League Catching Coordinator Detained by ICE

Oswaldo Pirela did everything the way they tell you to. Came here from Venezuela in 2014. Applied for asylum. Got a job. Kept renewing his work papers. Married. Had two daughters, both U.S. citizens. Coached kids in the Padres’ minor league system. Never so much as a parking ticket.

And at 5 o’clock on a Sunday morning, at the El Paso airport, your government grabbed him.

usicegov (Public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

Pirela is 34 years old. He’s a catching coordinator for the San Diego Padres’ minor league affiliates. He was on a work trip, doing his job, getting on a plane to go home to his family in Peoria, Arizona. He didn’t have his physical work-permit card on him. That’s it. That’s the crime. Forgot his wallet card.

Now he’s sitting in a federal detention center in El Paso, and DHS is out here telling the press he “overstayed his welcome.” Overstayed his welcome. Like he’s a party guest who wouldn’t leave. The man has two American-born children and a wife waiting at home. He’s been here 12 years. He applied for asylum a decade ago and the system just let his case sit there, because that’s what the system does. It doesn’t process you. It doesn’t approve you. It doesn’t deny you. It just keeps you in the drawer, forever, renewing your papers every year, paying the fees, jumping through the hoops, and then one morning they snatch you at the airport because you didn’t have the right piece of plastic in your pocket.

Gary Hoover (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Here’s what I want to know. Who benefits from this? Because it sure isn’t the American people. You’ve got a guy who’s working, paying taxes, raising citizen children, coaching baseball. And the government’s solution is to lock him up and start removal proceedings. Meanwhile, how many millions crossed the border under Biden with no paperwork, no asylum claim, no nothing, and got a free bus ticket to wherever they wanted to go? But the guy who followed every rule, who has a pending asylum application, who’s pursuing an EB-2 visa, who has a major league baseball team vouching for his employment, that’s the guy they decide to make an example of.

The Padres put out one of those corporate statements that says absolutely nothing. “We are working to gather additional information and will not have any further comment at this time.” Translation: we’re going to let this play out and hope nobody notices. MLB told CNN the team contacted the family. Great. A phone call. That and four dollars gets you a coffee.

The wife, Kemberly Avila, told The Athletic the family has pending asylum applications and carries temporary ID cards. The brother told ESPN he just didn’t have the physical card on him. The sister told the AP he’s done nothing but follow the rules since he arrived. And DHS’s response is a press release saying work authorization “does not confer