LOS ANGELES — A Mexican migrant detained by immigration agents in California while driving his wife to a hospital to give birth may have been mistaken by authorities for his brother, the man’s lawyer said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Joel Arrona Lara was wanted on an outstanding arrest warrant in a homicide case in Mexico.
He was detained last week while stopping for gas in San Bernardino, east of Los Angeles. His wife, Maria del Carmen Venegas, had to drive herself to a scheduled C-section.
Arrona attorney Emilio Amaya Garcia told KCBS-TV on Sunday that he is unaware of any warrant and has been unable to confirm it with the Mexican consulate.
Authorities might have mistaken Arrona for his brother, who has done jail time in Mexico, Garcia and Venegas said.
His client “denies any criminal history in Mexico and he is unaware of any criminal proceedings in Mexico in which he is named as a defendant,” Garcia told The Associated Press on Saturday.
A telephone message to the consulate was not returned Monday.
“For us, the issue is not so much the arrest, but the fact that ICE acted in total disregard for health and the well-being of the mother,” Garcia told the news station.
The couple was driving to the hospital Aug. 15 when they stopped at a gas station. Surveillance footage shows two vehicles immediately flank the couple’s van. ICE agents questioned the couple and asked for identification, Venegas said Saturday.
Venegas, 32, said she provided hers but that Arrona had left his at home. The footage shows the agents handcuffing the 35-year-old Arrona and taking him away, leaving a sobbing Venegas alone at the gas station.
Venegas said she drove herself to the hospital for a scheduled cesarean section for the birth of her fifth child.
“I feel terrible,” Venegas said in a telephone interview from the hospital as her newborn son Damian cried in the background.
“We need him now more than ever,” she said.
Venegas said she and her husband came to the U.S. 12 years ago from the city of Leon in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. They do not have legal authorization to live in the U.S., but all five of their children are U.S. citizens, she said.
Venegas said her husband is a hard worker and the sole provider of the family.
In a statement issued Saturday, Immigration and Custom Enforcement said Arrona “was brought to ICE’s attention due to an outstanding warrant issued for his arrest in Mexico on homicide charges,” spokeswoman Lori Haley said.
He remained in custody pending removal proceedings. Garcia said he is hoping a judge will grant his client bail.
Garcia planned to file a motion Monday for an immigration court to set a bail hearing for Arrona and will ask that his removal proceedings be canceled.
