An illegal alien who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in San Bernardino, California, on Wednesday as he was driving his pregnant wife to the hospital to deliver a baby reportedly turned out to be wanted on homicide charges in Mexico.
The arrest of Joel Arrona-Lara stirred outrage, especially after an emotional report by CBS Los Angeles on Friday simply covered the arrest itself, and the reaction of bewildered mother Maria del Carmen Venegas, before receiving an explanation from ICE as to why it occurred.
However, ICE subsequently released a statement Saturday indicating that the man was wanted on homicide charges, according to the Los Angeles Times.
CBS Los Angeles produced an updated report including the homicide charges. It also included a Friday statement from ICE that did not mention the homicide charges, and a statement by Arrona-Lara’s lawyer, Emilio Amaya García, that declared the charges “unconfirmed.”
The lawyer also told the Washington Post “his client was not suspected of crimes within the United States, and denies criminal charges in Mexico. The lawyer also “questioned why Arrona-Lara is slated for removal but not extradition, where a more formal handoff to authorities would be made,” according to the Post.
Veneers then drove herself to the hospital after her husband was detained. “They put the well-being and safety of the mother and baby at risk,” García told the Post. She had a scheduled cesarean section.
Holding her newborn baby boy, Venegas, a mother of five, told CBS Los Angeles that her husband had never been in trouble with the law.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Photo: file
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