Six children were orphaned last month when their parents, farm workers Santo Hilario Garcia and Marcelina Garcia Profecto, were killed in a car crash after being chased by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in California’s Central Valley. Lacking documentation and thinking that Garcia was being targeted after being previously removed, the terrified couple sped off. They would be dead in a matter of minutes.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the couple “lost control of their SUV when it veered into a dirt shoulder. The vehicle overturned and eventually hit a power pole.” They were declared dead at the scene. But ICE later said that Garcia was not even the man that they were looking for, and now an investigation by Delano police has revealed that ICE agents gave statements that contradict surveillance footage:
Shortly after the March 13 crash, a deportation officer told police officers that his car followed in the same direction of a vehicle he was attempting to stop, but that he was not in "pursuit with emergency lights/sirens," according to a statement provided in a Delano Police Department traffic collision report.
But surveillance footage obtained by the Police Department showed that one of two cars driven by the deportation officers had its front and rear emergency lights activated and the second had its rear emergency lights activated. A time stamp showed the couple's car at 06:48:42 traveling at a faster rate of speed than other traffic. At 06:48:52, two cars that matched the deportation officers' vehicles followed with the lights activated, according to the report.
The statements provided by the deportation officers, "contradict with the surveillance review conducted," the department stated in its report. The Delano Police Department declined to comment further.
Following the crash, ICE didn’t offer condolences to the six parentless children. Instead, ICE blamed their deaths on so-called “sanctuary cities,” citing “sanctuary policies, which have pushed ICE out of jails, force our officers to conduct more enforcement in the community—which poses increased risks for law enforcement and the public.” But the agents are alive, and Garcia and Garcia Profecto were mourned by hundreds earlier this month.
"Marcelina and Santos were hard workers who only wanted to provide for their family,” said United Farm Workers (UFW) president Arturo Rodriguez. “Like many other immigrants, they were farmworkers—people who lifted up this country. We want to ensure that the deaths of Marcelina and Santos are not in vain. This tragedy has shown this country that the inhumane politics of this administration destroy families."
Garcia and Garcia Profecto had been living in the U.S. since 2003, the UFW told the Los Angeles Times. “The pair were originally from Guerrero, Mexico, and mainly spoke Mixtec, an indigenous language.” Before their bodies were returned to Mexico for burial—it’s unclear whether any of their children were able to travel and attend—hundreds gathered for a memorial in the California Central Valley they helped to cultivate, including Delano Mayor Grace Vallejo:
Throughout the Mass, attendees spoke a mix of Spanish, English and Mixtec. Although some of those who attended did not know the couple, many said they could relate to their story.
"It could happen to anyone of us," said Delano resident Susana Ortiz. "People are scared, because they're leaving their kids and they don't know if they're going to come back."
Former and current farmworkers, as well as classmates, turned out to show their support for the couple's children.
Victoria Lennon, 17, attends school with one of the couple's daughters and is on the track team with her.
"This was definitely a situation in which I wanted to make sure that I was there for her and that she knew there were people who cared and she wouldn't be alone," Victoria said. "The people here are very caring, very giving, very family oriented. People stick together when things go down."
Throughout the service, the couple's oldest daughter, who is 18, cried often, as did her three younger sisters and two younger brothers. The family declined to speak to the media.
As the service came to a close and the caskets were opened, the children saw their parents for the first time since their deaths and wept. Someone had placed a photo of the couple in each casket.
In Garcia's were the words, "Querido Padre" and in Perfecto's, "Querida Madre." Beloved father. Beloved mother.
The couple’s eldest child, an 18-year-old with a nearly 2-year-old child of her own, will raise her younger siblings, according to a fundraising page set up by the Delano community. It has raised more than $52,000 so far. Following the crash, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California said it had "received numerous reports from Kern County and other parts of the Central Valley of ICE staking out the roads farmworkers travel to get to work and pulling them over during early morning hours without any lawful basis, resulting in numerous unlawful arrests of residents."
We know ICE lies. Top officials have resigned over it. And now ICE appears to be lying to save face after a deadly accident following their mistake. "This incident demonstrates just how dangerous ICE's unlawful practices are to our communities," said the ACLU’s Jennie Pasquarella. "This horrible tragedy is the direct result of ICE's inhumane tactics and the fear it provokes in hardworking people who stand to lose everything if they are deported."