Federal officials under scrutiny after alleging undocumented Milwaukee man threatened Trump
Immigration officials this week said an undocumented man arrested in Milwaukee had threatened to kill President Donald Trump — but their account of events is now facing scrutiny.
Now, his family members say they are receiving death threats.
Ramón Morales Reyes, 54, a Mexican immigrant living in Milwaukee, was arrested May 22 on Milwaukee's south side, shortly after dropping his daughter off at a school.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a news release six days later accusing Morales Reyes of writing a letter threatening to assasinate Trump.
The letter published by DHS reads, 'I will self deport myself back to Mexico but not before I use my 30 yard 6 to shoot your precious president in (h)is head.' The "30 yard 6" mentioned in the letter likely refers to a type of hunting rifle.
The DHS news release said an intelligence officer with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement received the letter in the mail on May 21, a day before agents arrested Morales Reyes.
However, his family members and his attorney say Morales Reyes — who does not speak English and is not proficient at writing in Spanish — could not have authored the letter.
According to his lawyer, Kime Abduli, Morales Reyes is from a rural part of Mexico where education was not readily accessible growing up.
A CNN report citing a "high-level law enforcement official who was briefed on the case" also said officials had already determined Reyes did not write the letter by the time they interviewed him. Reyes' handwriting and the handwriting on the letter didn't match, the source told CNN.
DHS was "careless" with their issuance of the statement, according to Abduli. She said the public statement from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has already done irreversible damage to the family and prompted numerous death threats against them on social media.
Morales Reyes is a victim in a robbery and assault case and was in the process of applyling for a U-visa, Abuduli said. U-visas allow undocumented victims of certain crimes to stay in the U.S. for up to four years if they agree to help law enforcement in the investigation of the crime.
According to Abudli, his family believes the letter may have been written by someone connected to the case in an attempt to get Morales Reyes deported before he could testify.
According to CNN, investigators also believe this is the case.
Morales Reyes is currently detained at Dodge Detention Center in Juneau.
Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant rights group that has been in contact with Morales Reyes' family, is urging DHS to retract its news release and issue a correction to clear Morales Reyes' name.
"Because of this lack of investigation, they are putting other people's lives under threat, and they're interfering with his due process rights and his pending legal cases," said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director at Voces de la Frontera.
DHS did not answer the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's questions May 29 about what evidence connected the letter to Morales Reyes.
"The investigation into the threat is ongoing," a senior DHS official said in an email. "Over the course of the investigation, this individual was determined to be in the country illegally and that he had a criminal record. He will remain in custody."
According to the DHS statement, Morales Reyes entered the U.S. without authorization 'at least nine times' between 1998 and 2005.
Publicly available records connect Morales Reyes to two incidents in 1996, one where he was accused of a hit-and-run and another where he was charged with disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property, related to domestic violence.
Based on the available documents, Morales Reyes was not charged for the alleged hit-and-run and the criminal damage charge was dismissed. He received a non-criminal conviction for the disorderly conduct charge, which usually refers to a ticket, the documents show.
The arrest of Morales Reyes comes amid the Trump administration's aggressive nationwide crackdown on unauthorized immigration.
The administration's efforts have included tripling arrest quotas for immigration agents, detaining students who participated in campus protests, deporting children who are U.S. citizens along with their undocumented parents, and wrongly deporting a Maryland man to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Immigration officials also recently carried out four arrests at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, leading to federal charges against a judge accused of helping an undocumented defendant evade federal agents.
The federal government's actions are the subject of multiple legal challenges in various courts over whether they violate the Constitution.
Neumann-Ortiz said the family is under a "tremendous amount of stress" and the DHS statement has added to that.
"They want his name cleared, and they want those death threats to stop," Neumann-Ortiz said. "They're based on something that's not true."
Eva Wen is a reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Reach her at qwen@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee man's ICE arrest sparks scrutiny of federal agents' account
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