Campaign Action
Last March, six central California kids were left orphaned when their parents, farmworkers Santo Hilario Garcia and Marcelina Garcia Profecto, were killed after being chased by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 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.
In the end, it wasn’t just clear that ICE had chased the wrong target—they were actually looking for Santo’s brother, Celestino—but ICE was lying about chasing them in the first place, with the Delano Police Department saying that agents gave them statements that contradicted surveillance footage. The department forwarded a report to the Kern County District Attorney’s Office requesting criminal charges against the two agents, but the DA declined.
In the meantime, the six grieving children—“whose ages range from 8 to 18,” with the eldest herself the mom of an infant—buried their parents and continued to live in the same building as their uncle Celestino, now “their closest remaining family member.” But late last month, ICE deported the farmworker, too:
On Wednesday morning, Celestino Hilario Garcia had just gotten into his car to go to work when ICE agents arrived and yelled at him to put his hands up, his wife said. She and her youngest child, a 4-year-old girl, watched it happen while the other children were still asleep, she said.
“It’s not fair that this happened,” said Hilario Garcia’s wife, who wanted to remain anonymous, according to the Huffington Post, because she fears for her safety. “First to my brother-in-law and now what they did to my husband.”
Hilario Garcia’s wife went on to say that the entire family has “still not recovered from the loss, and now they separate us … I have no idea how my life will be from now on. How to help my kids get by. Right now I’m the only one, also caring for my nieces and nephews.”
ICE defended the deportation, stating that "in April 2009, an immigration judge issued him a final order of removal, and ICE removed him to Mexico twice, once in April 2009 and again in May 2009. He has three criminal convictions for driving under the influence.” Celestino’s wife “said those convictions took place in 2011 and 2012.”
But ICE also knew that this man, who they’d been targeting for months, was the closest blood relative to these six kids. ICE knew that continuing to target this family would further traumatize six kids. ICE knew that this case had received national attention, and that their actions caused these kids to be orphaned in the first place. ICE knew all the circumstances, and deported him anyway:
The Delano Joint Unified School District, UFW Foundation, neighbors, friends and relatives have been supportive of the six children as they work through the loss of their parents, UFW President Arturo Rodriguez told The Californian in March.
On Thursday, UFW Foundation spokeswoman Leydy Rangel said the orphaned children have continued to live together in the same apartment complex as their uncle, but in a different unit. She added that the oldest of the six is trying to gain legal custody of her younger siblings.
Rangel said the uncle, a farm worker who picked grapes along with his wife, Lucy, had become "the closest thing that they saw as a father figure."
"ICE already contributed to the deaths of the parents of these six children who are now orphans,” said UFW Foundation leader Diana Tellefson Torres. “Can ICE be more callous in visiting even greater anguish upon this family that has already suffered so much? How much crueler can Donald Trump’s immigration policies become?” Considering he’s tearing children from parents at the border, it’s a frightening thought.