Rigo Mendoza tearfully recalled the last conversation he had with his son Kevin before he died in early January.
When the 15-year-old boy was diagnosed with cancer in November, all he could think about was his father’s safety. “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he repeated.
Mendoza recalled that one of the doctors said Kevin’s mother had been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents the day before, which may have had a negative impact on Kevin’s health. “I told him, ‘I don’t want you to be upset. If you’re okay, your mom is okay. We’re going to fight to bring her home.’ But I think he got scared that she wasn’t coming back,” Mendoza says.
His wife, Arlis Martinez, who like him is an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was arrested by ICE on January 3rd while on her way to work in Maryland. She was held in a temporary facility in the state before being transferred to a New Jersey detention center, where she was able to contact her husband several hours later.
“She told me she was in custody, but she doesn’t have a criminal record, so I don’t need to worry. She’s going to be released,” Mendoza said. CNN confirmed that Martinez had traffic violations, but no serious crimes. During his arrest, Mendoza said he was surrounded as if he were a criminal.
Mendoza and Martinez have spent more than 20 years in the United States, where they raised four children, all of whom are American citizens.
Two days after Martinez was arrested by ICE, Kevin died.
Now, Mendoza told CNN the couple is no longer fighting to remain in the United States. Instead, they plan to return to Mexico with their three children (two daughters and a son) and Kevin’s remains.
In November, Kevin told his parents he was experiencing pain in his knee. “The doctor said it could be cured by putting ice on it, but I wasn’t convinced,” his father said. So they decided to take him to a hospital in Baltimore, where he was diagnosed with cancer. From that moment on, his life changed.
Mendoza and Martinez worked at a fast food restaurant before Kevin’s diagnosis. “I quit my job the second day after I heard the news that he had cancer. I told my wife, ‘My kids are more important,'” Mendoza said. Since then, he devoted his time to caring for and treating his son, and his wife earned money for the family.
“When he was undergoing treatment, the doctors congratulated us and our son because everything was going so well for us,” Mendoza says. When he was diagnosed, he didn’t want to know what type of cancer Kevin had, but doctors told him it was a fight that Kevin could win.
“When you hear the word cancer, it’s shocking, especially for parents,” Mendoza says.
The family never learned about the nature of the illness.
CNN reached out to some of the medical team at the hospital where Kevin Mendoza was treated, but they declined to reveal details of his diagnosis for privacy reasons.
After Martinez was arrested on January 3, Mendoza said she didn’t want to tell Kevin about it, but the news got out through social media, and his condition started to deteriorate that night.
“I kept asking him if he was feeling okay. He said he was, and it was around 1 a.m. that I realized I was breaking out in a cold sweat.”
Mendoza took Kevin to a local hospital on January 4, but given his symptoms, they tried to transfer him by helicopter to another facility far away for treatment. However, due to the boy’s condition, he was unable to take off. So they remained at the local hospital.
Minutes earlier, Mendoza had had his last conversation with Kevin, and his son asked if he would take a helicopter or car with him because he was worried about his father’s safety.
“The last words I ever spoke to him were, ‘It’s really bad out there and I don’t want anything to happen to you,'” Mendoza said.
After spending several hours in the hospital, Kevin passed away on January 5th.
Mendoza said he told his lawyer about his son’s death the day of the incident and asked federal authorities to allow his wife to attend their child’s funeral.
“All they suggested was to release her for two hours at the funeral and then take her back to prison. It’s not fair to her and her daughters to see her like that,” Mendoza said, adding that the funeral had been postponed until the end of January.
In response to an investigation into the family’s request, ICE told CNN that Arlis Martinez has already been deported from the United States three times and is awaiting deportation proceedings.
She was released on January 29 after posting $12,000 bail and was fitted with an electronic ankle monitor. She attended Kevin’s private funeral last week.
Her lawyers, Carolina Curbelo and Taky Mika, told CNN they challenged her detention through a habeas corpus petition. The next step is a deportation hearing, which Martinez plans to attend in the coming weeks. “This is to prove that she has not fled the jurisdiction,” they said, adding that the case has been transferred from New Jersey to Maryland and they are still waiting for the case to be added to the “non-custodial” list.
Mendoza said that following his wife’s capture and the death of their son, the couple made the difficult decision to return to Mexico with their three children and take Kevin’s remains with them. “I’m not going to leave him here just because I’m not from here. Then one day I can bring flowers to his grave.”
The Mexican Embassy in Washington told CNN that it is providing legal assistance to Arlis Martinez and financial assistance to Rigo Mendoza for the voluntary repatriation of his family and the transfer of Kevin’s remains. Mendoza said she has received support from friends and family as well as her local school district.
“I dreamed of returning to my home country, but it didn’t turn out like this,” Mendoza said.
Lawyers note that some parts of the process require compliance with court orders. For now, Martinez’s main option is to request voluntary departure from the United States, but he could first request that his deportation be canceled and begin other legal proceedings.
Mendoza said “not a day goes by that my family isn’t suffering” amid the Trump administration’s massive immigration crackdown in several U.S. cities. He says his only motivation now is his three children.
“I try to be strong when I’m with them so they don’t get discouraged because they loved their brother so much.”
