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EXCLUSIVE: Undocumented Worker Didn't Know He Was Going To Work At Air Force Base

FAIRFIELD (CBS13) — Only on CBS13, we're hearing from one of the two undocumented workers detained at Travis Air Force Base by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

"I am a good guy," Hugo Mejia said. Mejia is being held at the Rio Cosumnes Corrections Center in Elk Grove, facing deportation back to Mexico.

He asked to speak for most of the interview in Spanish.

Mejia told CBS13, he came to the U.S. looking for an opportunity "just like anybody else." The only crime he says he committed is that he came here illegally. But he said his country (Mexico) doesn't give him an opportunity for a future.

Mejia and his undocumented co-worker Rodrigo Nunez were both arrested at Travis Air Force Base. The pair were going through the military base security on their way to a construction job at David Grant Medical Center.

Mejia said he didn't know the hospital would be on a military base.

Mejia told CBS13 he gave security his legal California issued driver's license number and his car registration but left his social security number blank because he doesn't have one. He filled out his taxpayer identification number in its place.

ICE issued a statement reading in part, the pair was arrested by "a fugitive operations team after they were notified of two foreign nationals attempting to gain entry into the military base."

Crowds in Mejia's hometown rallied for his release, while the democratic Congress member representing where he and his family have lived called the arrest excessive.

"This is the kind of inhumane deportation that even President Trump has said we weren't going to see," Rep. Jared Huffman said.

Both Mejia and Nunez have been deported before. Under federal law, a judge does not have to hear their case before they are removed from the country. Their lawyer is fighting for a hearing.

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