Suzanne Bonamici

U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici is pushing for the release of an Oregon woman whose immigration arrest in January left her two U.S. citizen children and her husband who just underwent heart surgery without a caregiver.

Six federal agents, including some with masks, detained Maria Trinidad Loya Medina on Jan. 10 after she left a Big 5 Sporting Goods store in Albany where she had gone to buy sports socks for her 16-year-old son.

Bonamici, D-Ore., said federal agents appear to have racially profiled Medina when they asked her to show her identification. Medina, 44, has no criminal record and has paid her income taxes on time, state and federal records show.

Bonamici met with Medina on Friday while she was conducting an oversight visit at the regional immigration center in Tacoma.

“After I heard her story, it just confirmed there’s absolutely no reason in the world why Maria should be in detention,” Bonamici said. “There’s concern about the kids being without the mom and her husband not being able to work.”

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security official has not responded to questions about Medina’s case.

Medina’s husband underwent an operation Monday to address a history of strokes, including one suffered in December that sent him to the hospital, according to medical records shared by the family with The Oregonian/OregonLive.

“His wife is his primary caregiver and will play an essential role in assisting with daily activities and recovery after an invasive cardiac procedure,” according to a letter from a cardiologist at Samaritan Health Services. “Safe and reliable post-operative care at home is critical to maintaining the patient’s safety and continuity of care during this period.”

Another letter from a physical therapist, dated Jan. 20, says Medina’s husband suffers from strength, balance and coordination problems that make it hard for him to take care of the couple’s two children.

Their son, Cristian, also wrote a letter to ICE, saying his mother “exceeds the role of a caretaker within” their family.

“Before I even begin to start my day of school in the morning, she is up and early to make a nutritious breakfast for both me and my sister,” he wrote. His sister Valeria is 14.

The teen told The Oregonian/OregonLive that it’s been difficult to deal with the extra household responsibilities at his age.

“Before, when my dad was healthy and my mom was healthy, all I had to worry about really was being a student and doing well in school and studying,” he said.

He has maintained a 4.0 grade-point average since his freshman year in high school, school records show.

“But now I have that added pressure, especially as a junior who’s taking AP classes … plus worrying about whether my family’s gonna be able to get groceries,” he said. “Feeling the weight on my shoulders is a lot.”

Immigration authorities say they have arrested more than 2,100 people in Oregon since President Donald Trump took office.

Bonamici said she has been trying to create awareness about Medina’s case and has been speaking with her legal team to figure out a way to get her “where she belongs, back home with her family.”

“I wish they would focus on people who are trafficking children, not people who are doing their best to raise their children, which is what Maria is doing,” she said. “… The fact that they would put their focus on Maria is just completely outrageous.”

‘At-large enforcement’

Melissa Loya, Medina’s sister-in-law, said Medina is originally from Michoacán, Mexico, and has been in the country for more than two decades. Medina has no documentation, and at this point, no way to gain legal status under the current immigration system, Loya said.

On the day of Medina’s arrest, Loya said, agents surrounded her car after she left Big 5 and asked for identification.

Medina, who works as a house cleaner, showed them her driver’s license but “the next thing she knows, ICE is breaking her back window,” Loya said.

Medina was terrified and called her son to let him know what was happening, said Loya, a third-grade teacher at Fern Hill Elementary School in Forest Grove.

An ICE report provided to the family says a team of agents from Salt Lake City was monitoring an apartment complex in Albany for a targeted arrest. Medina doesn’t live at the complex but it’s close to the Big 5.

Federal agents ran the license plate on Medina’s Toyota Avalon, according to the report.

The agents learned Medina was the registered owner and lacked legal status, according to the ICE report. They then surrounded her car, asked for identification, showed Medina a “signed warrant” and told her she was under arrest for being in the U.S. illegally, the report said.

According to ICE officials, Medina came into the U.S. in 1998 and was apprehended and sent back to Mexico the same day. Medina reentered the country “on an unknown date and unknown location,” according to the report, and was apprehended again last month during an “at-large enforcement action.”

It’s not known when agents spotted Medina’s car.

Her attorney in Washington state, Benjamin Cornell, said he believes agents simply saw Medina and wrote up an administrative arrest warrant for her after they got confirmation that she wasn’t a U.S. citizen.

“They clearly just saw a Hispanic woman and took it from there,” he said.

Denied release

An immigration judge last Wednesday denied Medina’s release on bond pending a final determination in her case saying she’s a flight risk, Loya said.

Loya disputed that assessment, citing Medina’s “strong ties to her community through church, her children’s school.” Loya said she wrote a letter to federal officials promising to personally ensure that Medina attended all her immigration court appearances.

Cornell said the immigration judge found Medina was a risk because she didn’t immediately respond to the agents while she was on the phone with her son during her arrest.

Cornell, along with Innovation Law Lab in Portland and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project in Washington, are considering filing a federal lawsuit on Medina’s behalf to challenge the immigration judge’s decision.

“The judge’s decision in the bond proceedings was totally irrational and arbitrary,” Cornell said.

Separately, Cornell also plans to file an application to cancel Medina’s deportation proceedings based on the number of years she has lived in the country with no criminal record.

As the legal woes continue, Loya said she’s particularly worried about the effect of Medina’s absence on her children.

She shared a note from a school counselor who noted Valeria’s distress. “When talking to Valeria she repeatedly tells me with tears in her eyes, ‘I just miss my mom,’” the counselor wrote.

Cristian said he’s trying to keep his family together.

“These hardships are only going to build us,” he said. “They’re not going to make us silent. … We’re not giving up.”