‘My heart breaks’: D.C. family shattered as father remains in ICE custody in Virginia

PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) -- A D.C. woman says her family has been left devastated after watching immigration enforcement officers arrest her husband while he was driving in the nation’s capital last week.

Forty-year-old Gerson López Funes was taken into custody on Monday, Sept. 8 as his wife, Johana Rivera, their 1-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter watched from the car.

"I was scared because we had not done anything and did not know the reason why they were there," Rivera said in Spanish. "We are people with no record."

She recalled initially not noticing any marked police cars in the area until their vehicle was stopped near 13th and Farragut in Northwest D.C.

"I wanted to do so much to help, but at the moment I felt helpless that I could do nothing among so many people," Rivera said in Spanish. "The only thing I was able to do was get out of the car with the kids and find time for my nerves to pass."

Rivera said their car was soon surrounded by officers from Metropolitan Police, Customs and Border Protection, and the FBI.

She said López Funes is here from Honduras, and had applied for asylum in the U.S., adding that in August, he was granted a one-year period by a judge to find a lawyer and reappear in court.

8News reached out to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for a statement about pending asylum, they said:

"Typically, individuals with a pending asylum case have already applied for asylum, either in immigration court or at USCIS, and are awaiting adjudication by the court or USCIS. From your description, it sounds like this person was already in the process and attending their court dates as required, but was nonetheless arrested by ICE. When a person is detained while they are pending adjudication of their asylum case, it becomes much more difficult for them to defend against their deportation for various reasons, including accessing a lawyer and helping to gather evidence about their asylum case. Previous administrations would not arrest asylum seekers already in active proceedings without changed circumstances, i.e., new criminal charges, understanding that they are already doing what is legally required of them, because to do so would run afoul of due process."

Rivera said her husband was questioned for 45 minutes before being taken away in an unmarked van, leaving her, their 1-year-old son, and 7-year-old daughter with autism, alone.

“It breaks my heart to see her [the 7-year-old] restless in the afternoon as she knew the afternoons she would spend with him, go to the park,” Rivera said. “Like I said, my heart breaks as a mom to see her miss him. It’s a very hard situation.”

She said, as a child with autism, having a routine is important. Now, that's been disrupted.

She said López Funes was first held at Riverside Regional Jail in Prince George County, where his sister, Estrella López, said he faced mistreatment.

"My brother has asthma, and so the heat, the lack of access to medicine," she said. "He got to see a doctor only after he got to Caroline detention center."

Now, being held in Caroline County, López Funes has only spoken with his family three times since being detained, his sister said.

"It's my understanding that they are going to move him this week and if they move him further away, it makes it harder for family to see him," Rivera said. "That is something that concerns me that whey would keep moving him further and further away."

"My brother doesn’t have a criminal history. He doesn’t have a criminal background," Estrella López said. "My brother is the opposite of everything they’re saying."