May 6
2025
ICE detainee in legal limbo
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Saul Valverde-Venegas and his wife, Paula Diaz, on the Maid of the Mist tour in Niagara Falls. Photo provided.
Saul Valverde-Venegas, the Buffalo man arrested two weeks ago by federal immigration officers, is stuck — legally and literally.
“I’m trying to have a strong mindset,” he told Investigative Post in a phone interview from the Buffalo Federal Detention Center in Batavia, where he’s been held since his April 23 arrest on the city’s West Side.
He said the arrest caught him by surprise.
“We went out to go to work and they just caught us,” he said. “Of course I was scared.”
His arrival at the Batavia detention center, he said, left him “very sad.”
“Once I got there, that’s when I noticed that they were going to try to keep me there for a month or two months,” he said.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomFor two weeks, Valverde-Venegas has been awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge. Shortly after his arrest, he said ICE officers told him he could see a judge on April 29, and possibly be released on a $1,500 bond. But that hearing was canceled and has yet to be rescheduled. An ICE spokesperson did not respond to a question asking why.
Valverde-Venegas, a roofing contractor by trade who was “always working” according to his family, now wears a blue jumpsuit and spends his days playing cards and soccer with other detainees, waiting on word from ICE.
“There are no options [to do anything], so we just have to wait,” he said.
ICE officials last week told Investigative Post Valverde-Venegas has been living in the United States “illegally,” despite an immigration judge closing his immigration case nine years ago, allowing him to stay. A spokesperson said “several vehicle and traffic law violations” made him “amenable to deportation.”
Valverde-Venegas said he was confused by that assertion.
“I paid [the fines] so I don’t know what they’re talking about,” he said.
Valverde-Venegas and his family, meanwhile, argue that he has a valid work permit, allowing him to live in Buffalo and work as a roofing and home improvement contractor. They say he’s in the process of obtaining a green card, which would afford him permanent residency.
His wife, Paula Diaz, said she is attempting to retain a lawyer to assist with his case.
In the interview Monday night — which was cut short due to a time limit on detainee phone calls — Valverde-Venegas said he’s trying to keep his spirits up. Valverde-Venegas speaks only Spanish, so his sister-in-law, Fabiola Vargas, translated Investigative Post’s questions and his responses. A reporter then asked a second translator to verify the accuracy of the quotes.
Valverde-Venegas said he did not understand why he was detained in the first place. When ICE arrested him the morning of April 23, he said officers told him he had proper paperwork but they needed to detain him because of an inconsistency.
“They came to arrest me because they had to check something,” he said.
Witnesses to the arrest said ICE officers and FBI agents arrived at the corner of Rhode Island and 14th Streets while Valverde-Venegas and another man, Milton Zuniga-Miranda, were loading a pickup truck. In a statement last week, the ICE spokesperson said Zuniga-Miranda overstayed a visa and was in the country illegally. The spokesperson cited an assault conviction Zuniga-Miranda received prior to his arrival in the United States as one of the reasons ICE is seeking to deport him.
ICE has yet to explain what specific reason resulted in Valverde-Venegas’ arrest.
“They asked for identification and they said everything was fine when I asked,” Valverde-Venegas said. “But also, something was wrong at the same time, so they had to take me to the office to confirm something.”
Officers took Valverde-Venegas to the 7th floor of the Delaware North building in downtown Buffalo where ICE rents office space. They detained him there for several hours, he said.
“They didn’t tell me anything so I said I have to call [my wife] Paula,” he said.
Diaz then sent paperwork for her husband to the ICE office. But something was wrong with the paperwork, Valverde-Venegas said. He didn’t understand what.
His sister-in-law, Vargas, put it this way: “What they told him was that something was wrong with the paper, that it wasn’t matching what he was saying.”
“But he wasn’t understanding what they were saying, because everything that he has is what they have in the system,” she said.
ICE officers then transferred him to Batavia, where he remains.
So far, Valverde-Venegas said he has no run-ins with guards, who are employed by federal contractor Akima Global Services. Other detainees have alleged abuse. He dislikes the food — mashed potatoes, green beans and a kind of salad — but said poor quality is to be expected in a jail. The commissary supplies mostly ramen noodles, he said, which he dislikes.
“Like in all jails, the food is bad,” he said.
Valverde-Venegas said what he misses most is going to work. He said he’s been working to expand his skillset from roofing to general contracting, part of a plan to start his own company.
He said he’s trying his best to keep his spirits up.
“We just have to continue on. What is one to do?”
