An Undocumented Father Is Detained In Front Of His Daughter

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

It all started as a normal day for Rómulo Avelica-González, an undocumented immigrant who was on his way to school for his 12-year-old daughter in Pasadena, CA, to leave the girl there. On the way, however, the 48-year-old Mexican who had lived and worked in the United States for 25 years, was arrested this week and sent to a detention center from where he would be deported, attorney Emi MacLean told Daily News.

Uniformed officers arrested Avelica-González, who has four children born in the United States, while his wife and daughter cried in the backseat of the car he was driving before being detained. A video recorded by them has gone viral and has moved many.

Avelica-González was taken to a nearby detention center where officials from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) informed his relatives that he would be deported to Mexico that same afternoon. "This has been very devastating for the family," said MacLean, an attorney for the National Day Laborers Organization Network, who managed to have her deportation postponed and he transported to another detention center outside of Los Angeles, where he still remains.

MacLean said Avelica-Gonzalez had no criminal record beyond a charge of driving under the influence of 10 years ago. His case has sparked a debate over whether ICE should detain people near a school where children are present.