Investigators were working to understand if an undocumented migrant, Ramon Morales-Reyes, had been set up by letters threatening President Donald Trump’s life several days before Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem publicized the claim that has turned Morales-Reyes’ life upside down.
According to Milwaukee Police Department records obtained by CNN, investigators had spoken with Morales-Reyes on May 22 – the day he was arrested – about the potential of someone trying to get him deported. Police began investigating jailhouse phone calls from an individual who allegedly attacked Morales-Reyes. Noem tweeted out her accusation that Morales-Reyes threatened Trump on May 28.
Morales-Reyes was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after they received one letter purportedly from Morales-Reyes threatening Trump, according to the police records.
The records say that Morales-Reyes gave ICE officers a handwritten note when he was arrested with his family information. Local investigators compared that note to the letter threatening Trump, and found they didn’t match.
“This note depicted completely different handwriting than what is on the letters and envelopes,” the police records say.
Shortly after his arrest, a local police investigator asked Morales-Reyes whether he knew of anyone who would want to have him deported. He said he only knew of one person who he had an issue with: the man who allegedly assaulted him in 2023, the records state.
On Monday, the Milwaukee police began looking into calls made by that person from prison, where he is being held pending a trial in the case.
Then, on Wednesday, Noem claimed on social media that Morales-Reyes sent a letter threatening to kill Trump, all while investigators already believed he had been set up. Despite this, the letter, alongside pictures of Morales-Reyes, were plastered over social media by Noem, DHS and several news outlets.
Attorneys and local organizers held a news conference Friday in Milwaukee to call on DHS to issue a correction, adding that the family of the migrant has received threats in wake of the report.
“This false claim has now had the consequence that the family feels that their lives are being threatened,” Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera – an organization that assists undocumented immigrants – said Friday.
“They want his name cleared,” Neumann-Ortiz said, adding that Morales-Reyes’ daughter has told the organization her father cannot speak or write in English and only became of aware of the allegations against him after seeing social media posts.
“He’s a very humble person. Soft spoken,” Morales-Reyes’ attorney Kime Abduli said, adding that he washes dishes for a living and is a hard worker who is focused on supporting several children. “That’s really been his motive in being here” in the US.
DHS has not responded to CNN’s questions Friday about the police records or the request from Morales-Reyes’ attorneys to change the social media posts.
On Thursday, in a statement to CNN, a senior DHS official said the investigation “into the threat is ongoing.”
“Over the course of the investigation, this individual was determined to be in the country illegally and that he had a criminal record. He will remain in custody,” the official said.
Jailhouse phone calls
Prison calls pulled by investigators and detailed in the police records – a process that started on Monday – show how another person, accused of attacking Morales-Reyes, discussed sending letters to government offices, including ICE, and wanted to have him deported prior to the case going to trial in July, preventing Morales-Reyes from ever testifying against him.
The person allegedly cut Morales-Reyes with a box cutter before robbing him of his bike in September 2023 and while the case is set to go to trial, it is unclear now if Morales-Reyes will be able to testify or will be deported from the country beforehand.
The calls obtained by investigators allegedly detail how the person had others search for government addresses, including the ICE office where the letter was received, and had them mail letters.
“With my armed robbery case, he’s an illegal immigrant. Soon as ICE makes contact with him, he’s getting deported,” the individual allegedly said on a May 3 call transcribed by police.
In a call in early April, the person said that because Trump is now in office it would be easy to have Reyes – whom he described as an “illegal immigrant” who didn’t “know a lick of English” – deported.
“He outta there,” the person said in a phone call on May 1, according to police records. “Once he have a run in with any ICE law enforcement. When he came to court he was scared to testify but even if you an illegal immigrant you can still testify but Trump wasn’t in office but now Trump came in office, they deported any motherf**ker. They going into court houses, all that.”
On other calls, the person allegedly asked for the local ICE office’s phone number and tried to have someone set up a three-way call with the office. (That effort was unsuccessful.) The person also allegedly asked for the address for the ICE office and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“I sent a big manila envelope to mama’s house. It either got there yesterday or – so, um, it’s either gonna be there tomorrow or it already got there,” the person allegedly said on a phone call in April. “It’s two letters in there that’s already written up, I just need you to put them in the mailbox for me. I just need them to be mailed out from the street and not from here.”
On a phone call the following day, the person said he would call back using another inmate’s pin “because the DA be listening to my calls,” the alleged assailant said.
“I got a plan,” he said, according to the records. “I got a hell of a plan.”
CNN has reached out to the attorney who represents the man that allegedly attacked Morales-Reyes. As of Friday, there have been no additional charges against the man. The Milwaukee Police Department told CNN it is investigating an identity theft and victim intimidation incident related to the case.
Jeffrey J. Altenburg, chief deputy district attorney for the Milwaukee district attorney’s office, said in an email Thursday the matter is under investigation.
‘A chilling effect’
Morales-Reyes is scheduled for a June 4 hearing in front of an immigration judge, his immigration attorney, Cain Oulahan, told CNN.
He had applied for a visa meant to protect undocumented migrants who were victims in a crime, allowing them to remain in the US while they are cooperating with authorities, the attorney said. Those visas, however, take years to get approved and the government only allows a limited number.
“It’s really sort of up in the air whether he’s going to be released or not,” Oulahan said.
“If he had a removal order, he would not be going to court,” Oulahan added. “The government is not alleging that he was deported previously.”
Oulahan said that Morales–Reyes’ status in the US “doesn’t change the fact that he is a victim” of a violent crime.
“The District Attorney has certified that he was a victim and is cooperating,” Oulahan said of the DA in Milwaukee, adding that there is a strong desire to clear Morales–Reyes’s name from what appears “to be completely false and fraudulent accusation against him.”
The arrest and subsequent publicity in this case, the attorney said, could end up harming undocumented migrants who are crime victims.
“It’s going to have a chilling effect if people are not willing to come forward,” Oulahan said.
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