BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho immigrant who entered the U.S. lawfully 10 years ago but overstayed his visa was among the many people swept up in the FBI and ICE raid on a racetrack last month in Wilder, according to Neal Dougherty, a Nampa lawyer and partner at Ramirez-Smith Law.

The man had no criminal history, but Dougherty said agents told him and another immigrant in a similar situation that they could be imprisoned for decades here, and weren’t allowed to talk to family or an attorney until they agreed to deportation.

The two signed up to be deported, he said.

The second immigrant who overstayed his visa is engaged to a U.S. citizen, Dougherty said, and could have been eligible for a green card after their marriage.

ICE took 105 immigrants into custody after the raid, where roughly 200 members of law enforcement from 10 agencies arrived at the final horse race of the season at La Catedral Arena. Many people were detained for hours, and some children were zip-tied. Four people who were targets in an FBI gambling investigation were arrested that day, and a fifth was arrested the day after. All five pleaded not guilty this week to the charges against them.

The Elmore County Jail provided the names of 48 immigrants ICE wanted to get booked into local jails on Oct. 20, the day after the raid, but it’s unclear whether all of them were from the federal operation in Wilder.

Of the 105 people arrested, the Idaho Statesman has confirmed the names of only 21.

One of those is facing a criminal immigration charge, and 19 of them are trying to secure their release from detention, according to lawyers and court documents. The other’s status is not known.

Hernan Arteaga-Solchaga was at La Catedral on Oct. 19 during the raid, according to a criminal complaint filed by Mitch Bierle, a special agent with ICE and Homeland Security Investigations. Arteaga-Solchaga was sentenced in 2015 to 30 months in prison for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, according to a judgment filed against him in U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho.

At the raid, Arteaga-Solchaga told officers that he was a Mexican citizen, and he was taken to the Boise ICE office. No information is available about his location on ICE’s detainee locator.

However, he was previously deported in September 2017, according to the criminal complaint. He was indicted this month with the charge of deported alien found in the U.S.

The others have all filed habeas corpus petitions, which argues that there’s no lawful basis to keep them detained, according to immigration attorney Casey Parsons. Two of the petitions were filed from Nevada and Wyoming.

The Trump administration has been expanding mandatory detention for many immigrants, despite that policy’s legal losses in court. The effect is that people often just stop fighting their deportation rather than sit in detention in the U.S., Parsons said. In the past, many immigrants in the U.S. have been given a bond hearing and released if they weren’t deemed to be dangerous or a flight risk, Parsons told the Statesman by phone.

A lot of the immigrants she’s working with have minimal criminal histories, Parsons said. One of her clients, for example, has two Idaho convictions — in 2007 for not having a driver’s license and in 2017 for speeding in a school zone.

Some have more than one conviction, but the vast majority are related to traffic and driving issues, the attorney said.

“The fallout for the families is obviously a mess,” Parsons said.

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