In their continuing ambition towards cartoonish super villainy, ICE have arrested a man in the middle of taking his pregnant wife to the hospital — leaving her stranded!
Joel Arrona-Lara was bringing his wife, Maria del Carmen Venegas, to the hospital for a C-section when ICE stopped them at a gas station in San Bernardino, California.
Maria told The New York Times that agents asked to see their papers, but Joel didn’t have his driver’s license on him.
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So they cuffed him and took him away, leaving a VERY pregnant woman all alone, in tears, at a gas station.
Maria ended up driving herself the rest of the way to the hospital and giving birth to a baby boy — whom Joel has not met as he’s still being detained.
The couple set up a GoFundMe to help pay for expenses, and their story quickly went viral — after which ICE changed up their story a bit.
Spokesperson Lori Haley told People the agents arrested Joel because of “an outstanding warrant issued for his arrest in Mexico on homicide charges.”
Wait, so they set up a complex sting operation that required him to need gas on that day? Or is she claiming agents recognized him?
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Innerestingly this “outstanding warrant” was not mentioned in ICE’s initial statement on the incident (nor was his wife’s condition at the time of arrest).
Emilio Amaya of the Community Services Center of San Bernardino is representing Joel. He told CBS he was unable to corroborate ICE’s new story:
“According to the family, he has no criminal history in Mexico, and we did our own search through Mexican channels and we didn’t find anything under his name.”
Joel’s detention papers only say he’s in custody for being undocumented. You’d think they’d mention a homicide charge.
Are they just throwing out a cover story? One that feeds into Donald Trump‘s “all immigrants are dangerous” rhetoric?
What do YOU think??
[Image via GoFundMe.]
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