Enrique Reyes' immigrant tale is familiar: He grew up in a tightknit family in Cuba with dreams of one day helping his parents. He traveled from Texas to Miami, working in a pipe factory, making friends and dating.
Yet his journey veered abruptly on Aug. 5, 2006, when Reyes, driving after a night of drinking, slammed into another car, killing one of his best friends and leaving him paralyzed.
Today Reyes, 30, is in a permanent holding pattern, stuck in a Broward County jail though he has already served his sentence for vehicular homicide. He is unable to leave for one reason: No one will take the paralyzed, undocumented immigrant.
''They are agreeing to hold him for violation of probation, but he hasn't violated probation,'' said his public defender, Jose Reyes, no relation. "That is the fiction we are holding him under. He can get out tonight if a halfway house is willing to take care of a paraplegic. He is only being held there because there is no place to go.''
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