For more than 20 years, Juan Aloatorre Martinez has been part of the fabric of Conway, Washington — so well known and well liked that neighbors simply call him the town's "unofficial mayor." In July, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents surrounded him while he was opening up at work and took him into custody. He has been held at the Tacoma Detention Center ever since, awaiting a hearing now scheduled for October 8.

Martinez and his attorney say ICE detained the wrong man. The Department of Homeland Security has said he was targeted because of two prior arrests. Whatever the full picture turns out to be, the people who actually know Martinez have made their view clear. His co-worker, Alex Gonzalez, said watching it happen was painful because he had lived through something similar himself: "I knew exactly what he went through because I went through the same thing. And it was just sad," according to KIRO 7 News. His friend Lindsey Brooks put it simply: "You don't have angels like that anymore," she told KIRO 7 News. Another friend, Peter Mendham, framed it as a matter that shouldn't split along political lines at all: "This shouldn't be red, blue, left, right. This is just right or wrong. And this is just wrong," he said, per KIRO 7 News.

A man who has spent two decades building a life and a community in Conway deserves a fair, timely hearing — not indefinite detention while his neighbors wait for answers. Sign the petition to call for Juan Aloatorre Martinez's release ahead of his October 8 hearing, before Conway loses the man it calls its own mayor.