A Fort Lauderdale man is sharing the emotional moment his wife was detained by federal immigration agents \u2014 an encounter he captured on his phone as it unfolded.<\/p>\n
Noah Lazega says his wife, 24-year-old Nicolth Hernandez-Lucero, was driving home Wednesday night when she was stopped by immigration agents. Within moments, she called him. As he listened in shock, he began recording the call.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you’re going to come with us tonight,\u201d an agent can be heard telling Hernandez-Lucero in the recording shared with NBC6.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs there a reason that I got stopped?\u201d she asks in the audio.<\/p>\n
Moments later, her fear becomes clearer: \u201cAm I gonna be detained?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d responds the agent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lazega says he was stunned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just listening, just in shock. I can\u2019t believe what\u2019s happening,\u201d he told NBC6 Politics Reporter Hatzel Vela.<\/p>\n
Newly married couple now separated<\/p>\n
Lazega says the couple has been together for nearly four years and got married in December. They were planning to celebrate their marriage with a party later this month. As a U.S. citizen, Lazega says he had already begun the process of helping his wife adjust her immigration status.<\/p>\n
According to Lazega, agents told her they were \u201cin the area running plates\u201d when she was stopped near St. Ambrose Episcopal Church in Fort Lauderdale. He says she asked about probable cause but did not receive a clear explanation.<\/p>\n
Hernandez-Lucero, who is from Colombia, has lived in the United States since she was 15, her husband said, adding she works as a surgical technician at a local hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a kind, compassionate person, selfless,\u201d Lazega said. \u201cShe helps people, saves people. She has a whole community behind her right now rooting for her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attorney: She entered the U.S. legally<\/p>\n
Hernandez-Lucero is now being held at a detention facility in Pompano Beach.<\/p>\n
Her attorney, Justin Gould, says she entered the United States legally and has been going through the asylum process with her family \u2014 a process that can take years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a person, once again, who entered legally, who filed a case legally as a dependent through her parents and has been in this country with no criminal record,\u201d Gould said.<\/p>\n
An NBC6 search of Florida public records did not show any criminal history for Hernandez-Lucero.<\/p>\n
Gould argues the immigration system is broken and says people like his client should not be behind bars.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo now it is basically everybody\u2019s illegal unless otherwise noted, and it\u2019s just not OK,\u201d Gould said. \u201cThisis not what the president promised.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I love you so much\u2019<\/p>\n
During NBC6\u2019s interview with Lazega, Hernandez-Lucero called him from detention.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love you so much,\u201d he told her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love you. I love you,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n
Lazega says he hopes sharing their story will raise awareness for others facing similar situations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope we can get her out, get her help, raise awareness to other people that are going through this right now. They don\u2019t deserve this. Nobody deserves this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
NBC 6 reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment about Hernandez-Lucero\u2019s case, but has not yet received a response.<\/p>\n
Her attorney has filed for a bond hearing. The family is now waiting for a judge to respond and set a court date \u2014 as anxiety continues to grow for her husband, relatives and friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Fort Lauderdale man is sharing the emotional moment his wife was detained by federal immigration agents \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250,2033],"class_list":{"0":"post-154963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-lauderdale","8":"tag-fort-lauderdale","9":"tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","10":"tag-fort-lauderdale-news","11":"tag-only-on-6"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}