SANTA ANA, CA — An immigration judge has thrown out a deportation case against an undocumented father of three U.S. Marines who was detained by Immigration Customs Enforcement agents last year while he was working his landscaping job in Orange County, The New York Times reported.
Narciso Barranco, 49, was initially detained last June while clearing weeds outside an IHOP restaurant in Santa Ana.
Viral video of the incident showed the father being pinned to the ground, with officers repeatedly punching Barranco while he is on the ground.
“I feel betrayed,” Son and U.S. Marine Alejandro Barranco told The Orange County Register last June. “My dad has no criminal history. He wasn’t doing anything bad. He was just working. The way [federal agents] attacked him, I don’t think it’s right.”
In an order terminating the deportation case, Judge Kristin S. Piepmeier said that Barranco had provided evidence that he was the father of three American sons in the military, which renders him eligible to obtain lawful status, the report said.