Migrant spouse of pregnant woman detained on way to hospital

A California woman said she had to drive herself to the hospital and give birth without her husband after he was detained by immigration agents.

Maria del Carmen Venegas said she and her husband, Joel Arrona Lara, were driving to the hospital Wednesday when they stopped for gas in San Bernardino, just east of Los Angeles.

Surveillance footage shows two vehicles immediately flank the couple's van after they pulled into the gas station.

Agents with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement questioned the couple and asked for identification, Venegas said.

Venegas, 32, said she provided hers but that Arrona had left his at home in their rush to the hospital.

The surveillance 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 US 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 US, and all five of their children are US citizens, she said.

Venegas said her husband is a hard worker, the sole provider of the family and has never ever been in trouble with the police.

ICE confirmed in a statement yesterday that agents with the agency's Fugitive Operations Team detained Arrona on Wednesday and said he remained in custody pending removal proceedings.

Though the team prioritizes arresting immigrants who are transnational gang members, child sex offenders and those who've had previous convictions for violent crimes, the agency's statement said it "will no longer exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement."
"It's a very questionable situation."