Wife of Dreamer Detained by ICE Speaks Out: ‘He’s Done Everything Right’ 

In February, Juan Chavez Velasco was driving breast milk his wife had just pumped to feed his 12-day-old daughter in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit when he was boxed in by two unmarked cars in his Texas neighborhood. It was ICE, and he’s been detained ever since. This week, his wife spoke out for the first time. 

“He’s done everything right,” Stephanie Villarreal told PBS NewsHour on Wednesday. “He’s come here. And he’s built his education. He’s built his family,” she said, adding that he has two bachelor’s degrees and that they purchased their house last year. Velasco told the agents he had kids and a wife and was in the U.S. legally, but they replied, “That doesn’t matter.”

In a phone interview from his detention center with MS Now, which first broke the story in March, Velasco said he never got to hold his daughter. Currently, the family is still raising funds to help with the baby’s hospitalization, since she needs regular blood transfusions.

Velasco is a DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient, or “dreamer”—an initiative created by the Obama administration in 2012 to protect undocumented children who arrived in the U.S. before 2007 from deportation. Villarreal said that, since her husband’s been in detention, he’s had some “medical concerns,’ including kidney stones. “He doesn’t have the healthiest of foods or the best drinking water,” she added.

Currently, more than 500,000 DACA “dreamers” still live in the U.S. But since Trump took office, about 260 of them have been detained by ICE, and at least 80 of them have been deported. In July, Trump told DACA “dreamers” to self-deport. 

“The [Trump] administration had mentioned nothing would happen to DACA recipients,” Villarreal told PBS. She says that while Velasco had DACA status when he was detained (recipients must file for renewals every two years), it has since expired—she suspects it’s deliberate. In March, 16 Dem. lawmakers sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security urging them to reduce delays for DACA renewals. 

Velasco was born in Colombia, but hasn’t lived there since he was 8, and applied for DACA status when he was 15—the minimum age for the program. He and his parents arrived in the U.S. on a tourist visa in 1999. He’s renewed it regularly since, and in 2016, his parents became permanent citizens. Villarreal—along with their children—are also U.S. citizens.