His son died after ICE detained his wife. Why this father of four chose to self-deport

(CNN) — Rigo Mendoza tearfully recalls the last conversation he had with his son Kevin before his death in early January.

The 15-year-old boy, who had been diagnosed with cancer in November, could only think about his father’s safety. “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he kept repeating.

His mother had just been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents the previous day, a fact that may have negatively impacted Kevin’s health, Mendoza recalls one of the doctors saying. “I told him, ‘I don’t want you to get upset. If you’re OK, your mom will be OK. We’re going to fight to get her home.’ But I think he got scared that she wasn’t coming back,” Mendoza says.

His wife, Arlith Martínez, who like him is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was on her way to work in Maryland on January 3 when she was arrested by ICE. She was held at a temporary facility in the state before being transferred to a detention center in New Jersey, where she was able to contact her husband hours later.

“She told me she had been detained, but not to worry because since she has no criminal record, she was going to be released,” Mendoza says. CNN confirmed that Martínez has a traffic violation on her record, but no serious crimes. Mendoza says that during her arrest, she was surrounded as if she were a criminal.

Mendoza and Martínez have spent more than 20 years in the United States, where they’ve raised four children, all of whom are American citizens.

Two days after Martínez’s arrest by ICE, Kevin died.

Now, Mendoza tells CNN, the couple is no longer fighting to remain the United States. Instead, they plan to return to Mexico with their three children – two daughters and a son – and the remains of Kevin.

An uncertain diagnosis

In November, Kevin told his parents he was experiencing knee pain. “The doctors said we should just put ice on it, and it would go away, but I wasn’t convinced,” his father recounts. 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 Martínez had been working at a fast-food restaurant until they received Kevin’s diagnosis. “I quit my job the second day after I got the news that he had cancer. I told my wife, ‘My child is more important,’” Mendoza says. From then on, he devoted his time to his son’s care and medical treatment, while his wife earned money for the family.

“When he was receiving treatment, his doctors congratulated us and my son because we were doing everything so well,” Mendoza says. When they received the diagnosis, he didn’t want to know what type of cancer Kevin had, but the doctors told him it would be “a battle Kevin could win.”

“When you hear the word cancer, it’s devastating, even more so for a parent,” Mendoza says.

The family never found out about the nature of illness.

CNN contacted 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 Martínez’s arrest on January 3, Mendoza says he didn’t want to tell Kevin about it, but the news reached him through social media, and that night his condition began to worsen.

“I kept asking him if he felt OK. He said yes, and it wasn’t until around 1 a.m. that I realized he was sweating cold.”

Mendoza had taken Kevin to a local hospital on January 4, but given his symptoms, they attempted to transfer him by helicopter to another facility further away to receive treatment. However, due to the boy’s condition, they were unable to take off. So they remained at the local hospital.

Minutes earlier, Mendoza had a final conversation with Kevin, when his son asked if he would go with him by helicopter or car, because he was worried about his father’s safety.

“’It’s really bad out there, and I don’t want anything to happen to you,’ were the last words I had with him,” Mendoza says.

After several hours in the hospital, Kevin died on January 5.

Funeral after arrest

Mendoza said he told his lawyers about his son’s death the day it happened and that they asked federal authorities to grant his wife permission to attend the child’s funeral.

“All they offered was to let her out for two hours at the funeral and then take her back to jail, and it’s not fair to her or my girls to see her like that,” Mendoza said, adding that they postponed the funeral until the end of January.

In response to an inquiry about the family’s request, ICE told CNN that Arlith Martínez had already been deported from the United States three times and was awaiting deportation proceedings.

She was released on January 29 after posting a $12,000 bail and was fitted with an electronic ankle monitor. She joined a private funeral for Kevin last week.

Her lawyers, Carolina Curbelo and Takyi-Micah, told CNN that they had challenged her detention through a habeas corpus petition. They said the next step is a deportation hearing, which Martínez is due to attend in the coming weeks. “This is for her to demonstrate that she has not fled the jurisdiction,” they said, adding that the case is being transferred from New Jersey to Maryland, and that they’re still waiting for it to be included on a “no detention” list.

Following his wife’s detention and son’s death, Mendoza says the couple has made the difficult decision to return to Mexico with their three children and bring Kevin’s remains with them. “I’m not leaving him here because I’m not from here. That way, one day I can bring flowers to his grave.”

The Mexican Embassy in Washington told CNN it is providing legal support to Arlith Martínez as well as financial assistance to Rigo Mendoza for the family’s voluntary repatriation and transfer of Kevin’s remains. Mendoza says he has also received support from his local school district as well as friends and family.

“I dreamed of returning to my country, but not like this,” Mendoza says.

The lawyers point out that part of the process requires complying with court orders. For the moment, they say, Martínez’s main option is to request voluntary departure from the US, although she could also request the cancellation of her deportation first and initiate another legal process.

Mendoza says that amid the Trump administration’s massive immigration crackdown in several US cities, “not a day goes by without a family suffering.” He says his only motivation right 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 little brother very much.”

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