Immigrant featured in article is arrested
Martin Barrios, a 35-year-old factory worker who became a public face for the millions of illegal immigrants who, if deported, would have to leave their U.S.-born children behind, was arrested Friday morning.
According to a spokesperson from Centro Sin Fronteras, a local immigrant-rights group, Barrios was arrested at his Berwyn home about 6:30 a.m. Friday in his pajamas, as his wife and children watched.
Barrios brought the story of his struggle to stay in the United States to the Sun-Times in April. At that time, he had his hopes set on a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Chicago) that would have kept him and 35 other Illinoisans with "mixed immigration status" in the U.S. The bill has not passed the House.
His wife, Araceli Barrios, declined comment Monday, citing her husband's loss of employment after being interviewed in the Sun-Times last April in an immigration story.
But in April, Araceli Bar-rios had told the Sun-Times that if her husband was deported, she would move herself and her children to Los Angeles to live with her mother.
Barrios is ineligible for citizenship because he crossed the border illegally from his home state of Zacatecas, Mexico, 18 years ago, then fell prey to an immigration law scam artist who improperly filed his citizenship application.
Gail Montenegro, Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman, said Barrios is being held at Dodge County Detention Facility in Juneau, Wis. pending a last-minute request from Chicago's Mexican Consulate to review his legal records for any basis for a final appeal.
However, Montenegro maintained Barrios has "exhausted all opportunities for appeals."
"From our standpoint, he's here in defiance of an outstanding deportation order," she said, while adding, "we have no confirmed departure dates."