Support Alex Mendiola’s Immigration Legal Defense Fund

I met Alex in August 2023 during a Defy Ventures coaching day at the Correctional Training Facility (CTF) in Soledad. CTF is a level II medium security prison where incarcerated men have the opportunity to continue to improve their lives by taking college courses, vocational training, and completing Defy’s CEO Of Your New Life work-readiness and entrepreneurship program.

Alex was 26 years into a life sentence for a crime he committed when he was 19 years old. The man I sat across from in 2023 was not the same man who committed a violent crime as a teenage gang member. He now took full responsibility for his crime, was remorseful, had renounced his gang affiliation a decade earlier, was wise, sincere, and empathetic. He also had a clear vision of what he wanted to do when he got out of prison. Years earlier, he had the chance to work with rescue dogs while incarcerated, socializing them and getting them ready for adoption. The unconditional love he received from those dogs changed his life and gave him purpose. His post-release plan became to start a non-profit bringing rescue dogs into neighborhoods with at-risk youth. He would help these teenagers experience the same unconditional love from the dogs he had received, and maybe, he could help some of those teens choose a better path. When Alex shared this story and his plan with me, I was so moved. I was also determined to help him in any way I could.

Alex and I stayed in touch, at in-prison volunteer events and by mail. A year later, in August of 2024, the California Parole Board found Alex suitable for release. He was going home after 27 years of incarceration, assuming Governor Newsom approved the parole board’s decision, which he did a few months later.

Here’s where Alex’s story turns tragic. He came to the US from Mexico as a 9 year old. His parents obtained legal residency for the entire family, and eventually they all became US citizens. Except for Alex, whose legal status was put in jeopardy the moment he was convicted of an aggressive felony at age 19. Two weeks after the state of California said, “you have paid your debt to society, you have proven you are ready to rejoin the greater community, you can go home now,” the federal immigration service stepped in and said, “not so fast”. The feds don’t care that Alex served 27 years in prison and has been an exemplary inmate, including dropping his gang affiliation more than a decade ago. According to federal law, he is forever subject to deportation because of the severity of his crime, no matter how long he has served in state prison or the extent of his rehabilitation.

Alex walked out of CTF in mid-December and was immediately taken into custody by ICE and sent to an immigration detention facility in McFarland in the Central Valley. He will appear in immigration court in early April and faces long odds of a ruling in his favor. If he is returned to Mexico, a country he left when he was 9 years old, he will have no living family there to take him in. Additionally, he will likely be targeted by the cartels for forced employment, torture, or even execution based on his past incarceration and former gang affiliation.

The only legal avenue for Alex to remain in the US and be reunited with his son, granddaughter, mother and sister, is if his lawyer can prove that Alex will more than likely be targeted by the cartels and should therefore be entitled to protection under the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT). In order to mount a successful CAT defense, Alex’s attorney will need to hire an expert witness and his legal fees will be costly. As some

of you may know, non-US citizens are not entitled to free legal representation like citizens are. Alex’s family has very limited resources and it is estimated that Alex’s legal fees will be at least $20,000.

Please, join me in the effort to help a beautiful human being who has turned his life around remain in this country by contributing to his legal defense fund. If we fail, and Alex is deported to Mexico, any excess funds raised will go toward supporting Alex in his effort to evade the cartel and start to build a new life.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.