A St. Louis County woman wants answers after her fiancé, who she said has no criminal history, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Victor López Delara, a mobile mechanic, was traveling for work Tuesday when an O'Fallon, Missouri, police officer pulled him over.
That's when López Delara called his fiancée.
"He was terrified, he was trying to be positive, and he was hoping that, you know, [he'd] just get a ticket and like everybody else, [they'd] let him go," she said. "But unfortunately, they escalated, and they took him."
López Delara's fiancée spoke to St. Louis Public Radio on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from ICE. STLPR was able to confirm her identity.
She said he was pulled over for not having a front license plate.
The fiancée said police detained López Delara after he wasn't able to provide a driver's license.
An O'Fallon Police Department spokesperson confirmed that an officer discovered López 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'Fallon are limited to municipal traffic violations and recommended reaching out to ICE regarding López Delara's custody and transfer status.
A spokesperson said ICE would look into the request.
López Delara's fiancée 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.
"It's something that you're never going to be prepared to deal with," his fiancée said. "What do you do when a loved one is detained like that?"
López Delara's fiancée said he had qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program but was unable to submit his application because he didn't finish high school for financial reasons. She said he tried to get a GED, but it was too late.
"By that time, the Trump administration had stopped, detained the initial process for DACA," she said. "So every time that we tried to do something it wasn't available."
López Delara and his fiancée 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's baseball team in Maryland Heights.
"His baseball coach and kids wrote letters for him, and they're very devastated," the fiancée said. "He usually coaches on practices on Wednesday so he will definitely be truly missed today."
López Delara has been in the U.S. since arriving from Mexico with his family as a child.
"He's now 29 so he's been here for 26 years, doesn't even have any criminal record or anything," his fiancée said. "He'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."
The fiancée, who is an immigration advocate, said traffic stops leading to ICE detention have become common. She said the towing company that was holding López Delara's van said it's seen an influx in towed vehicles from traffic stops.
"Even they said that they get so many cars from O'Fallon daily and that some have never been picked up because that person has been already deported," López Delara's fiancée said. "It's a daily thing. I think people are being targeted unfairly, and it's happening, they're working silently."
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