Brown had turned himself into the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office for a probation violation, but the next day ICE sent the sheriff’s office a detainer asking for Brown to be held up to 48 hours after his due release. After appearing at Monroe County Court on April 26, Brown was placed on a bus to the Krome Service Processing Center, an immigration detention center in Miami.
According to the ACLU, which is representing Brown, he tried to tell the sheriff’s office that they had the wrong man, but guards had this racist response:
“Jail officers ignored him entirely. None of them helped him cancel the detainer or even looked into his claims, even though the jail’s own records listed Peter as a U.S. citizen. Many officers even mocked him, telling him in a Jamaican accent that everything was “gonna be alright.” Officers sang him the theme song to the TV show the Fresh Prince of Bel Air—“West Philadelphia born and raised”—after he repeatedly told them he was from Philadelphia and had no ties to Jamaica.”