Three sisters in Big Bear Lake are bracing for the unimaginable \u2014 losing both parents.<\/p>\n
The girls\u2019 mother has been battling Stage 4 brain cancer and is in hospice with only a short time left to live.<\/p>\n
And now, their 49-year-old father, Armando Gonzalez, a local handyman, is facing the threat of deportation after he was detained by federal immigration agents in Big Bear Lake this week. <\/p>\n
In a phone interview with The Times, Adriana Gonzalez, 20, and her sister, Citlalli Montes, 26, said they\u2019ve been feeling overwhelmed, heartbroken and fearful as they balance caring for their dying mother and helping their father. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like our hearts not only broke once but twice,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cWe also feel scared because we don\u2019t know what\u2019s next \u2014 our mom\u2019s time is limited.\u201d <\/p>\n
In addition to helping their mother and father, they\u2019ve also been trying to support their 16-year-old sister, who is in school. <\/p>\n
The sisters are afraid that their mother may die while they\u2019re out helping their father. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just in the middle more than anything because they both need us,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n
Since their father was detained, the Gonzalez sisters have taken to the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe<\/a> to raise money to provide legal assistance to their father so that he can be home with his wife.<\/p>\n The two sisters said federal immigration agents detained their father shortly before 8 a.m on Tuesday at Big Bear Boulevard and Wren Drive.<\/p>\n Adriana Gonzalez said videos and photos of federal immigration agents surrounding her father\u2019s truck began to circulate within the community. <\/p>\n \u201cMy aunt found out first and she came to the house, woke us up and said, \u2018Hey, this could be your dad\u2019s truck,\u2019\u201d she said, recalling.<\/p>\n Gonzalez said she stormed out of the house without shoes.<\/p>\n When she and her older sister arrived at the location, they saw their father\u2019s truck \u2014 a gray Toyota Tundra \u2014 parked on the side of the road. She said her father was nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n Gonzalez and Montes said their father, who works as a handyman and house cleaner, is being held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, which has faced scrutiny amid allegations of inhumane conditions and mistreatment of immigrants.<\/p>\n At least four Mexican nationals<\/a> have died at the detention center, which has been the subject of a federal class-action lawsuit. Last month,<\/a> California filed an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit. Mexico plans to do the same. <\/p>\n The sisters believe their father did not have a final removal order or a warrant for his arrest and that he was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.<\/p>\n In an email response to The Times, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said Gonzalez was a \u201ccriminal illegal alien from Mexico convicted of public order crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n They said he entered the U.S. at an unknown date and will remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of his removal proceedings.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder President Trump and Secretary Mullin, criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.,\u201d the statement read, referring to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.<\/p>\n San Bernardino County court records show that Armando Gonzalez was charged in April 2011 with operating a vehicle without a valid driver license, which was treated as an infraction.<\/p>\n He was also charged with improperly displaying a license plate, which was later dismissed.<\/p>\n Gonzalez pleaded guilty that July to the first offense and paid a fine of more than $400, records show.<\/p>\n The two sisters said their parents have been longtime community members of Big Bear Lake. They said their parents fell in love with the area because it was safe and peaceful.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve never wanted to leave,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cThey said this is our place.\u201d<\/p>\n The sisters said their mother, Erika, often volunteered at school functions and would go out of her way to help anyone in need, including raising money. They said their father also liked to help the elderly and anyone else who needed help.<\/p>\n Their father has been the pillar of the family, they said. He made sure Gonzalez and her sisters always had clothes, food and that they made it to school events when they needed to, sometimes sacrificing work over it.<\/p>\n \u201cHis priority was always to make us, you know, succeed in life,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cHe helped put my older sister through college and he put me through college. My mother was also sick and he made sure that she was going to all her appointments. He would drive her there and he would take care of her.\u201d<\/p>\n Their mother was diagnosed with brain cancer more than five years ago. She went through multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation therapy and had four surgeries, Gonzalez said. <\/p>\n They said the cancer made an aggressive return and that her mother was not dealing with one tumor but three.<\/p>\n \u201cShe tried treatments but it was just very advanced,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n For now, the sisters hope that by sharing their family\u2019s story they might be able to find some way to bring their father home. <\/p>\n Gonzalez said since her father was detained, she\u2019s spoken to him only for a few minutes. She recalled one part of their talk as they discussed her mother: <\/p>\n \u201cHe told me to just take care of her and that he loves her and if I could [give] her a hug from him.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three sisters in Big Bear Lake are bracing for the unimaginable \u2014 losing both parents. The girls\u2019 mother…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[111636,81320,18454,111637,111638,9533,6314,8684,5776,1520,48,52,51,47,50,49,11468,6316,111639,15158,111640],"class_list":{"0":"post-251107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-adriana-gonzalez","9":"tag-armando-gonzalez","10":"tag-big-bear-lake","11":"tag-brain-cancer","12":"tag-criminal-illegal-alien","13":"tag-deportation","14":"tag-father","15":"tag-federal-immigration-agent","16":"tag-homeland-security","17":"tag-interview","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-la-headlines","20":"tag-la-news","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","23":"tag-los-angeles-news","24":"tag-mom","25":"tag-mother","26":"tag-secretary-mullin","27":"tag-sister","28":"tag-southern-california-sister"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}