A St. Louis County woman wants answers after her fianc\u00e9, who she said has no criminal history, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n
Victor L\u00f3pez Delara, a mobile mechanic, was traveling for work Tuesday when an O’Fallon, Missouri, police officer pulled him over.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when L\u00f3pez Delara called his fianc\u00e9e.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was terrified, he was trying to be positive, and he was hoping that, you know, [he\u2019d] just get a ticket and like everybody else, [they\u2019d] let him go,\u201d she said. \u201cBut unfortunately, they escalated, and they took him.\u201d<\/p>\n
L\u00f3pez Delara\u2019s fianc\u00e9e spoke to St. Louis Public Radio on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from ICE. STLPR was able to confirm her identity.<\/p>\n
She said he was pulled over for not having a front license plate.<\/p>\n
The fianc\u00e9e said police detained L\u00f3pez Delara after he wasn\u2019t able to provide a driver\u2019s license.<\/p>\n
An O\u2019Fallon Police Department spokesperson confirmed that an officer discovered L\u00f3pez Delara had an active ICE detainer, which is a request by immigration officials to transfer an individual in custody to ICE, during a traffic stop. The spokesperson said charges in O\u2019Fallon are limited to municipal traffic violations and recommended reaching out to ICE regarding L\u00f3pez Delara\u2019s custody and transfer status.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson said ICE would look into the request.<\/p>\n
L\u00f3pez Delara\u2019s fianc\u00e9e said she spoke with him Wednesday morning when he was transferred to the ICE field office in downtown St. Louis. Immigration officers told her he would be transferred to the Ste. Genevieve County jail around 3 p.m. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s something that you’re never going to be prepared to deal with,\u201d his fianc\u00e9e said. \u201cWhat do you do when a loved one is detained like that?\u201d<\/p>\n
L\u00f3pez Delara\u2019s fianc\u00e9e said he had qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program but was unable to submit his application because he didn\u2019t finish high school for financial reasons. She said he tried to get a GED, but it was too late.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy that time, the Trump administration had stopped, detained the initial process for DACA,\u201d she said. \u201cSo every time that we tried to do something it wasn’t available.\u201d<\/p>\n
L\u00f3pez Delara and his fianc\u00e9e met when they were 15 years old and have two children together. An avid soccer and baseball fan, he often volunteers and coaches for her nephew\u2019s baseball team in Maryland Heights.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis baseball coach and kids wrote letters for him, and they’re very devastated,\u201d the fianc\u00e9e said. \u201cHe usually coaches on practices on Wednesday so he will definitely be truly missed today.\u201d<\/p>\n
L\u00f3pez Delara has been in the U.S. since arriving from Mexico with his family as a child.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s now 29 so he’s been here for 26 years, doesn’t even have any criminal record or anything,\u201d his fianc\u00e9e said. \u201cHe’s no threat to anybody. This is just not the person that ICE is saying that they’re going after at all. This is truly the complete opposite. He is no criminal, not a threat to anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fianc\u00e9e, who is an immigration advocate, said traffic stops leading to ICE detention have become common. She said the towing company that was holding L\u00f3pez Delara\u2019s van said it’s seen an influx in towed vehicles from traffic stops.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven they said that they get so many cars from O\u2019Fallon daily and that some have never been picked up because that person has been already deported,\u201d L\u00f3pez Delara’s fianc\u00e9e said. \u201cIt’s a daily thing. I think people are being targeted unfairly, and it’s happening, they’re working silently.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A St. Louis County woman wants answers after her fianc\u00e9, who she said has no criminal history, was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-477332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}