Jose "Julian" Morales Calderon was driving to his St. Louis-area home from Planet Fitness with his sister on Tuesday when he saw lights flashing behind him.
The St. Ann Police Department confirmed the Mexican man was pulled over for a traffic violation. The department turned Morales Calderon over to St. Charles County police after discovering there was a warrant out for his arrest.
Lily Barcenas, his 21-year-old girlfriend, said she paid Morales Calderon's $450 bond. Moments later, St. Charles County Corrections staff told her he wasn't going to be released.
"We got told that [he] would be out in an hour and that we could wait for him outside," she said.
That didn't happen. Instead, a video shared with St. Louis Public Radio shows Barcenas exclaiming as a white van leaves the jail with lights flashing before receiving a call from Morales Calderon — ICE was taking him.
"His mom was there," said Barcenas. "He was just telling his mom that he loves her and that he's sorry for everything."
Barcenas subsequently went back to ask the jail staffer who collected the fee if she knew anything about why ICE was called.
"I don't have anything on that," the staffer told Barcenas in a video reviewed by STLPR. "He had a $450 bond, and I even called booking and asked them, and they said nothing."
The staffer went on to tell Barcenas that she had not seen the ICE detainer until after she paid the bond. "I don't know why," said the staffer. "I am so sorry."
Cpl. Barry Bayles, a spokesperson for the St. Charles County Police Department, said Morales Calderon had a warrant out for a traffic infraction given by the Missouri Highway Patrol, failure to appear in city court and an ICE detainer for reentering the country.
The spokesperson added that "Jake's Law" in Missouri statutes requires law enforcement and their affiliates to check for outstanding warrants before releasing someone. After the bond was paid to take care of outstanding local issues, ICE was notified, and the agency came and took him into custody.
An ICE spokesperson said the agency couldn't comment by STLPR's publish time.
Morales Calderon is being held at the Ste. Genevieve County jail, a southeastern Missouri facility where an ICE detainee died last October in what the agency said appeared to be suicide.
"He was 9 months old when he got here. I mean, he's been here his whole life," said Barcenas, adding that he has no family in Mexico. "We're just hoping that we can get him back home."
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