ICE detains man driving pregnant wife to hospital

CALIFORNIA: A pregnant woman in California said she had to drive herself to hospital to give birth because immigration authorities had taken her husband on the way there.

jaria del Carmen Venegas said her husband Joel Arrona Lara was driving her to the delivery room in San Bernardino, California, a city east of Los Angeles.

The couple had stopped at a petrol station when surveillance footage showed two vehicles with US Immigration and Customs bnforcement (ICB) agents question the couple about identification documents.

Venegas handed hers over but her husband had left his ID card at home while rushing to get her to hospital for a scheduled cesarean section. She later gave birth to the couple’s fifth child, a son.

She said her husband had offered to go to the couple’s home, which was close to the gas station, to retrieve his identification card. However, ICE agents did not allow that to happen.

The video showed agents asked Arrona to step out of the vehicle, searched the van for weapons, and then handcuffed Arrona before taking him away and leaving a bereft Venegas alone in the gas station.

Venegas told the local CBS News station: “My husband needs to be here. He had to wait for his son for so long, and someone just took him away.”

Arrona is originally from Mexico and has been in the US for 12 years without legal authorisation, Venegas confirmed.

She noted he has never been in trouble with the police before and is the sole provider for the family.

ICE confirmed in a statement Fugitive Operations agents had detained Arrona on Aug.15 and said he would remain in custody pending deportation proceedings.

The agency said it “will no longer exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.”

“All of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the US,” the statement said.

The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why they had chosen the couple’s vehicle at the gas station to ask for identification nor why they had not allowed Arrona to go to their home nearby to retrieve his ID card.