\u201cWhat I want more than anything, I can\u2019t get back: to recover my health, to be with my wife and daughter, and to be able to work again,\u201d he said in a recent phone interview from an aunt\u2019s home in Michoac\u00e1n, where he lives now.<\/p>\n
His U.S.-born wife, Aby Pe\u00f1a, who has remained in California with the couple\u2019s now-5-year-old daughter, Emily, said she doesn\u2019t understand how ICE officers could treat another human being as her husband was treated.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just inhumane,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd it also affects children because they\u2019re being separated, and it\u2019s a damage that is irreversible.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260219-SUNNYVALEDEPORTED-14-BL-KQED.jpg\")
Family photos hang on the wall at Aby Pe\u00f1a and Ulises Pe\u00f1a Lopez\u2019s home in Sunnyvale on Feb. 19, 2026. Pe\u00f1a Lopez was deported to Mexico after being taken into ICE custody outside their home in February 2025, leaving his wife and young daughter in the Bay Area. (Beth LaBerge\/KQED)<\/p>\n
In a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Monday, his lawyers say the arrest, on Feb. 21, 2025, led to \u201ca cascade of harms,\u201d including lasting trauma for Pe\u00f1a and their daughter, who witnessed it.<\/p>\n
By law, the complaint said, ICE \u201cbears responsibility for the safety and well-being of individuals\u201d it detains. Yet court records indicate the arrest triggered a heart attack and stroke. And the lawsuit said ICE and private prison contractors failed to get Pe\u00f1a L\u00f3pez critical follow-up care, including an urgent neurological workup and physical therapy.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit also alleges that staff at both facilities where he was held \u2014 Golden State Annex and California City Detention Facility, both in Kern County \u2014 denied him disability accommodations, such as glasses and hearing aids, as required by law.<\/p>\n
In one example cited in the complaint, the private prison staff at Golden State Annex allegedly assigned Pe\u00f1a L\u00f3pez to a top bunk: \u201cUlises\u2019s weakness and numbness on the right side of his body prevented him from safely climbing to a top bunk. He asked detention staff to reassign him to a bottom bunk but was told that they could not make that change.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages to compensate Pe\u00f1a L\u00f3pez and his family and to punish the government.<\/p>\n
In a statement emailed to KQED, an unnamed Homeland Security spokesperson said ICE arrested Pe\u00f1a L\u00f3pez \u201cduring targeted operations.\u201d It said \u201che resisted multiple lawful commands made by ICE officers,\u201d but it didn\u2019t address the lawsuit\u2019s allegations that he was beaten. At the time of the arrest, an ICE spokesman told KQED<\/a> the allegation that officers beat Pe\u00f1a L\u00f3pez was \u201cabsolutely inaccurate.\u201d<\/p>\n The ICE statement said, \u201cAny claims of subprime medical care at ICE facilities is FALSE,\u201d and reiterated boilerplate language asserting that the agency provides comprehensive care that \u201cfor many illegal aliens \u2026 is the best healthcare they have received their entire lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Laura Murchie, a member of Pe\u00f1a L\u00f3pez\u2019s legal team, disputes that. She said his health worsened in detention because he did not get the medical care he needed.<\/p>\n As arrests spike, advocates say detention conditions are dangerous<\/p>\n Pe\u00f1a L\u00f3pez entered the U.S. illegally in 2013, when he was 18. He said he was unaware that ICE had an expedited removal order from that time, allowing for a fast-track deportation. He had four misdemeanor convictions, though his immigration lawyer, Priya Patel, noted that none involved physical violence.<\/p>\n Lawyers say what happened to Pe\u00f1a L\u00f3pez in the early weeks of the second Trump administration was a sign of things to come, with violent, even fatal, immigration raids <\/a>rolling out in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s just this tenor of impunity that ICE officers have, that\u2019s letting them get away with acting worse more often,\u201d Murchie said. \u201cMore people are getting swept up into their impunity and violence.\u201d<\/p>\n Nearly 400,000 people were arrested by ICE last year, more than four times<\/a> as many as in 2024. The number of people in ICE detention peaked<\/a> in January at a record high of over 70,000, 80% more than when President Joe Biden left office.<\/p>\n Those surging numbers and the conditions in detention facilities have led to a spike in deaths. Since Trump\u2019s second inauguration, 52 people have died<\/a> in ICE custody \u2014 a mortality rate four times that during the Biden administration and higher even than during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n Watchdog entities, including Disability Rights California and the California Attorney General\u2019s office, have raised alarms<\/a> about the lack of adequate medical care<\/a> at ICE facilities in California, including the two where Pe\u00f1a L\u00f3pez was held.<\/p>\n Margot Mendelson, executive director of the San Quentin prison-based Prison Law Office, said ICE detention is \u201cextraordinarily dangerous\u201d for people with serious health concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyone can have a medical need while they\u2019re in custody, and they\u2019re often not addressed in a safe and adequate manner,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is particularly dangerous for people who show up with pre-existing medical conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n Mendelson\u2019s group filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of detainees, alleging \u201ccrisis-level\u201d conditions at the California City facility, which opened abruptly<\/a> last August. In February, a federal judge ordered<\/a> the facility to provide adequate medical care and appointed an independent medical expert to monitor the situation.<\/p>\n Lack of critical care leaves lasting damage<\/p>\n Six months before Pe\u00f1a L\u00f3pez\u2019s arrest, doctors diagnosed a vertebral artery dissection, a tear inside a blood vessel to the brain, that likely came from lifting heavy loads at his construction job. The condition was well managed, according to the lawsuit, but it put him at risk for a stroke or heart attack.<\/p>\n After he suffered the heart attack during his arrest, ICE summoned paramedics, who took him by ambulance to El Camino Health in Mountain View, where he was kept overnight.<\/p>\n Two days later, he collapsed in the yard at Golden State Annex and was taken to a nearby emergency room with sharp chest pain, difficulty breathing and tingling in his chest, face and arms, according to the complaint. The hospital discharged him with instructions for a swift follow-up appointment, but he never received it, despite emphatic letters from his neurologist back home.<\/p>\n A week after that, Pe\u00f1a L\u00f3pez was hospitalized again, with a severe headache and sudden numbness on the right side of his body. Doctors said a neurology consultation was \u201curgent,\u201d but ICE didn\u2019t arrange one until four months later, according to the claim.<\/p>\n His paralysis is visible in a video<\/a> posted early this year to social media by an immigrant advocacy group in San Francisco. In contrast, earlier family videos show him<\/a> as an able-bodied dad with his young daughter.<\/p>\n To recover from his injuries, Pe\u00f1a L\u00f3pez requires an operation to place a stent, according to the lawsuit, as well as ongoing medication, monitoring by specialists and intensive rehabilitation. The operation alone is estimated to cost about $30,000, money his family doesn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n Before he was arrested, Pe\u00f1a L\u00f3pez had health insurance through his work. In Mexico, he has none, said his wife, a licensed vocational nurse.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ice-badge-69a05cdd559c5.jpg\"){kind=icon}
A federal agent wears an Immigration and Customs Enforcement badge on June 10, 2025. (AP Photo\/Yuki Iwamura, File)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CoreCivicKernCountyGetty.jpg\")
The CoreCivic, Inc. California City Immigration Processing Center stands in the Kern County desert awaiting reopening as a federal immigrant detention facility under contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in California City, California, on July 10, 2025. (Patrick T. Fallon\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/RS56703_20220529-16-44-13-qut.jpg\")
Protesters gathered outside the Golden State Annex immigrant detention center in McFarland on May 29, 2022. The event was part of a statewide effort to call attention to conditions for immigrant detainees. (Courtesy of Joyce Xi and the Dignity Not Detention Coalition)<\/p>\n