ICE goons have detained the parents of a Marine serving his country as they tried to visit their pregnant daughter on the Camp Pendleton base.
Steve Rios said his parents—Esteban Rios and Luisa Rodriguez—were detained by Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents as they all went to visit his pregnant sister, Ashley, and her Marine husband from the California military base.
ICE agents led his parents away on Sept. 28 as his father wore a red shirt and white hat that both said “Proud dad of a U.S. Marine,” Rios told NBC 7 San Diego.
Agents released the parents with ankle monitors and ordered a follow-up appointment, where ICE took them back into custody.
“I just kept on looking at my parents. I didn’t know if it would be the last time I’d see them,” Steve told NBC 7 San Diego. Ashley said she just “started… bawling.”
Rios, from Oceanside, California, said his father had worn his “lucky” red “Proud dad of a U.S. Marine” shirt to the check-in, telling his kids, “we’ll be fine.”
The family says officers led both parents away, where they were held downtown and told they would be moved to the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego County.
By last Friday, his father had been deported. It is unclear what has happened to his mother.
The family told NBC 7 San Diego that the couple has no criminal history and they are awaiting green-card applications sponsored by their Marine son, alongside valid work authorization.
He said they left Mexico more than three decades ago and, for as long as he can remember, have worked dawn to dusk washing cars and cleaning houses.
“It was just making them proud, right? I’ve seen all the struggles they’ve gone through,” Steve told the station. “The least I could do, right, and serve this country and try to, you know, put some time in. I don’t think [it] amounts to what they’ve done.”
Ashley said it’s agonizing not being able to hear her parents’ voices, reassuring her that things will be OK. Being pregnant, she’s especially anxious—she always imagined her mother in the delivery room.
She and her brother, Steve, said that no one has explained why their parents were detained or what comes next, but they’re trying to keep faith. Steve said only “the person up there” knows.
ICE told NBC 7 San Diego in a statement, “As part of its routine operations, ICE arrests aliens who commit crimes and other individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws.
“All aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention, and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States, regardless of nationality.”
ICE has been criticized for turning increasingly to unpopular targets for deportation, as it desperately tries to hit President Donald Trump’s reported 3,000-a-day goal.
The organization is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem—nicknamed ICE Barbie for her cosplaying during ICE raids.
The Daily Beast has contacted DHS for comment, asking whether it could confirm that Esteban Rios had been deported and what has happened to Luisa Rodriguez.
DHS was also asked what it thought the U.S. public would feel about ICE deporting the parents of pregnant Marines.
At the time of publication, DHS had not replied. The Beast will update the article if and when it does.
The post ICE Barbie’s Goons Detain and Deport Dad of Marine appeared first on The Daily Beast.
