Family buries "unjustly accused" Mexican teen who died in ICE custody
Royer Perez Jimenez was a "hard worker" who immigrated at 15 to "triumph and help his family," his uncle said.
Hundreds of people gathered Saturday for the burial of a young Mexican man who died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, with family members denouncing the "fabricated" charges that led to his detention and death.
Royer Perez Jimenez, a 19-year-old from the municipality of San Juan Chamula in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, died on March 16 at a detention center in Florida.
He was arrested in January on suspicion of resisting arrest and giving a false identity to law enforcement, but Perez insists he was confused because he was not fluent in English.
"He was unjustly accused as a criminal. ... They fabricated a crime," Perez told AFP, while also expressing the family's doubts about the circumstances of his death.
ICE officials said Royer died of an apparent suicide but the official cause of death remained under investigation.