Erick Hernandez was brought to the U.S. from El Salvador 20 years ago when he was 14 years old, his family said. His parents now have legal status in the U.S., and his wife Nancy Rivera said they began the process for him to gain legal status after they got married last fall. His family and attorney said he has no criminal history.
Rivera said they met during the pandemic, when she had two young daughters and was in school but didn’t know how to drive. A friend introduced her to Hernandez and said he could give her a ride to her classes.
“He’s always been there for us,” Rivera said. “He’s always been like a family dad so that’s what I love about him.”
“With him, like, everything changed,” she added.
The two welcomed a daughter and are expecting a son in August. Hernandez’s parents said he works with his father in air conditioning, and as a rideshare driver to make some extra money. The whole family lives in East Los Angeles.
On June 1, Hernandez was giving two people a ride from L.A. to the border in San Ysidro, his family and attorney said. He wrote a declaration that he missed the exit on the freeway and ended up crossing the border by accident.
“And when that happened, he lost everything, basically,” his attorney Valerie Sigamani said, noting that anyone with DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — needs prior approval to leave the U.S.
“He no longer has DACA. His attempt to come back to the United States and say, ‘This was a mistake. It was an accident. I was not trying to leave the United States,’ was ignored,” Sigamani said.
Sigamani alleges American officials at the border asked him for a payment to return.
“One of the officials told him, ‘Well, if you pay us $800, we’ll forgive everything, and we'll let you into the United States with no problem,'" Sigamani said. She said Hernandez thought that was a legal process but did not have the cash on him.
Sigamani said he’s been placed in expedited removal, which is essentially a fast-tracked deportation process in which he’s detained and not eligible for bond. He’s been held at Otay Mesa Detention Center ever since.
“He has a lot of hope. He feels like something good is going to happen. He's a person of faith,” Sigamani said. “But at the same time, he's sad about the entire situation. He's afraid of returning to El Salvador. He doesn't know that country. He hasn't been there since he was a kid, so he has no idea what it's like to live in El Salvador.”
Hernandez’s parents said in Spanish he’s a loving father who they rely on for help caring for his younger siblings as well. They called the situation “a nightmare” and said they fled El Salvador because it was corrupt and dangerous. They said they don’t understand how this happened here and are terrified of what could happen to him if he’s deported.
“I'm just worrying. I'm just worried that he's, if he gets deported, like, how I'm going to manage everything by myself,” Rivera said. “It’s just a lot of, you know, stress, anxiety that I have.”
Rivera said she’s caring for the children alone and still working full time in her third trimester, concerned about the loss of Hernandez’s income.
“He was my main support, you know?” she said. “It was, I just think one second that, you know, everything changed.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/detentions-daca-recipients-show-theyre-190807474.html