San Diego Padres minor-league coach released from ICE custody

SAN DIEGO — San Diego Padres minor-league catching coordinator Oswaldo José Pirela has been released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention on bond, the team said Tuesday.

Pirela, a former Texas Rangers minor-league player from Venezuela, was detained Aug. 16 at El Paso International Airport in Texas as he was traveling for work for the Padres, according to the Department of Homeland Security and his family.

“We are pleased that Oswaldo Pirela has been released on bond and reunited with his family,” Padres spokesperson Craig Hughner said in a statement Tuesday. He added that the team would have no further comment for now out of respect for Pirela’s privacy “and the ongoing matter.”

DHS said Pirela entered the country legally in 2014, was granted permission to remain until early 2018 and overstayed.

It said proceedings to remove him from the country remain on track.

“When approached by law enforcement officers, he was not in possession of legal documentation granting him status in the country,” it said. “On August 24, he was released from ICE custody on bond pending his removal proceedings.”

His family said Pirela has an application for asylum pending. The agency said work authorization and a pending application for asylum “do NOT confer legal status in the United States.”

His family has disputed DHS’ version of the facts in his case. In a previous statement, it said Pirela entered legally on a tourist visa, filed an asylum application and obtained work permits “related to that process.”

The family said 2018 was not an end year for Pirela’s permission to be in the U.S.

“The expiration date of a visa stamped in a passport does not, by itself, determine how long a person was authorized to remain in the United States,” it said, “nor does it prove that he was without any immigration proceedings since that date.”

The family said it is asking DHS to prove via documentation that Pirela, who lives outside Phoenix with family members who include two U.S.-born daughters, is in the country illegally.

Pirela has retained an immigration lawyer, it said, to dispute DHS’ version of his stay.

On Tuesday, Kimberly Pirela thanked God for her husband’s release and said the family is now focused on preventing his removal from the country.

“Now it is up to us to continue with this entire process, and we must concentrate on what is really of interest to us,” she said in a statement translated from Spanish, “which is doing everything as well as possible.”