It was 5:30 in the morning on April 8 and Jose Arturo Gonzalez Carranza was driving to his job in Gilbert, Arizona when the next thing he knew flashing lights were behind him.
So he pulled over and was immediately surrounded by at least five officers in military camouflaged clothing. The officers were U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and they had their guns drawn, AZCentral reports. And they were yelling.
“Put your hands up. Open the door.”
Then the officers pulled him out of the car and handcuffed him against the side of his car, Gonzalez Carranza said.
“Who are you guys? I have rights,” he asked.
“Nevermind,” the officers yelled.
Then they put him in the back of a van and drove him to ICE headquarters near downtown Phoenix.
Thus began a nightmare in which Gonzalez Carranza, whose wife, Army Pfc. Barbara Vieyra was killed in Afghanistan, was arrested by ICE officials, deported to Mexico and then allowed back into the U.S.
And it’s been difficult for Gonzalez Carranza, born in Veracruz, Mexico, to reconcile this — the fact that the U.S. — the country his wife died for — could deport him and leave his 12-year-old daughter Evelyn without a mother and a father.
During his time in custody, he was told that a judge signed a deportation order because he didn’t show up at a deportation meeting last December, Alternet reports. But the reason he didn’t show up is that it was mailed to the wrong address, said his attorney Ezequiel Hernandez.
Gonzalez Carranza and Vieyra were married in 2007 and Evelyn was only three when her mother was killed in Afghanistan in 2010.
“I feel bad because President Trump says he wants to help (veterans)” Gonzalez Carranza told The Arizona Republic. “But then why does he want to kick people out when his wife sacrificed?”
Gonzalez Carranza,30, said immigrants should be judged case-by-case, but with Trump as president, ICE has become far too aggressive with deportations.
“I think the new president, the only thing he wants to do is deport people for no reason,” he said. “I know there are bad people in America, good people in America. But he only thinks, if you are illegal, you are going out. He never thinks about what happened with the families.”
But Trump doesn’t care about the thousands of kids separated from their families. His policy of separating families at the border is brutal.
He doesn’t care about veterans, either, having jerked them around on several occasions. He’s openly mocked veterans, slashed their healthcare, and even stopped their pay during the last government shutdown.
So it’s no surprise that under this president, ICE agents acted in such a disgraceful manner.
Featured image courtesy of the video above
