Loved ones are heartbroken after a Southern California mother was detained and deported after a routine immigration hearing.
Maria Valeriano Perez, 52, is a mother of three children who has lived in the U.S. for 35 years. She had been working as a custodian in Ventura County for years.
Her family said she attended an immigration appointment on June 4 and, instead of receiving an update on her case, she was immediately handcuffed and taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
She was transported to a federal detention center in downtown L.A. and was eventually deported to Oaxaca, Mexico.
Maria’s daughter, Erika Perez, said she was not only in shock over her mother’s detainment, but also by the reportedly heartbreaking conditions her mother had witnessed.
“She told me about women inside banging doors, begging for food,” Erika told KTLA’s Sandra Mitchell. “They were so hungry that they would pretend they were drinking [and eating.]”
Erika said her mother described the detention facility conditions as bleak — a place where men, women and children were crowded into a single room for processing.
“The women would crawl under benches and start crying just to escape the nightmare that they were going through,” Erika said.
Kamilla Ponce, whose uncle was also detained by ICE, said he was not provided with much information during the process.
“They didn’t even ask if they had papers or if they were documented or had proof of ID, they just rounded them all up,” Ponce said.
Her uncle, Rodolfo Ponce Flores, was taken into custody during a raid in the Garment District in downtown L.A. on June 6. She said in just a few days, he had been moved to at least three different facilities across three different counties in SoCal.
“We tried to go see him, but they said, ‘No,’” Ponce said. “They were not letting anybody in, not even the lawyers.”
Although Erika said her mother has accepted her fate that she may never gain U.S. citizenship, it doesn’t change the effect her absence will have on her friends, loved ones and community members.
“She told me to take care of my siblings and that it’s going to be okay,” Erika said of her last conversation with her mother before she was deported. “I’m just devastated. She’s gone now. She left me alone to raise my two other siblings.”
Under a new policy from the Trump Administration, Maria would not be able to apply for re-admission into the U.S. for another 10 years.
A GoFundMe page to help the Perez family can be found here. A campaign to help Ponce’s uncle can be found here.
