A classic David vs. Goliath story

Carlos Sauceda is a community organizer, a certified alcohol and drug studies specialist, and youth mentor who fights for the liberation of immigrants in detention. 

At 15 years old, Carlos was tried as an adult and sentenced to 15-years-to-Life for a gang-related murder he committed. After serving 22 years in prison and being found not a threat to public safety, he was granted early release by the California parole board due to his leadership and rehabilitation while incarcerated. Today at 41, Carlos is incredibly remorseful for the actions he took as a teenager and uses his experience as a youth mentor to empower and help prevent other young people who are growing up under similar conditions from making the same mistake.

In 2017, when Carlos was released from prison, instead of being reunited with his family, he was transferred to ICE custody at the Yuba County Jail where he spent 16 months. While Carlos was detained, an immigration judge granted his relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) but ICE appealed the decision, forcing Carlos to remain in detention while he kept fighting his case. After nearly two years in immigration detention, Carlos couldn’t take the physical and psychological abuse any longer and made one of the hardest decisions in his life: he signed his deportation. 

Carlos hasn’t given up! In April 2022, after a long legal battle including a reversal and remand from the 9th Circuit, the Board of Immigration Appeals finally affirmed the immigration judge’s decision granting Carlos relief under CAT, once and for all. Carlos now has the right to #Return2US and reunite with his family in Southern California, but we need your help to #BringCarlosHome! 

Carlos is currently living abroad with his U.S. citizen wife, who has been diagnosed with 5 aneurysms, and is working hard to come home, but there’s a wrinkle! In order for Carlos to safely come back to the U.S. as a Lawful Permanent Resident, without the fear of re-detention or rejection at a port-of-entry, Gov. Newsom must pardon Carlos’ 25-year-old conviction! 

Tell Gov. Newsom to Pardon Carlos!

“I don’t want others going through what I went through”

During the 16 months that Carlos was detained at the Yuba County Jail (YCJ), he staged hunger strikes to protest the psychological, emotional, and physical abuse he and others endured at the hands of YCJ and ICE. When Carlos was deported he decided he wanted to continue fighting for others who were now in his shoes at YCJ. In 2020 he joined the Yuba Liberation Coalition. 

Carlos and other detained leaders were instrumental in the liberation of incarcerated immigrants from (YCJ), the jail went from 175 detained individuals in April 2020 to zero in late 2021. Even though ICE began repopulating YCJ in December of 2021, Carlos has been fighting tirelessly along with his wife for the liberation of the 2 men currently detained and the termination of the contract. 

Read more of Carlos' story in his own words through an op-ed published in the San Francisco Chronicle: https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/I-ve-done-time-in-12-California-prisons-Yuba-16804293.php