Font ResizeLAS CRUCES - The Rios family raised their children to love, honor and protect their country. Marine Lance Cpl. Eric Rios, 20, is set to deploy in February with his artillery battalion. Gabriel Rios, 19, is studying criminal justice at New Mexico State University in preparation for a career as a Border Patrol agent.
But neither one ever thought they'd be protecting their country from someone like their father, Eutimo Rios, 44, who was booked Tuesday morning into the Do-a Ana County Detention Center and will face a judge this morning in federal court.
"(Immigration and Customs Enforcement) picked him up," Lance Cpl. Rios, who is stationed in Oceanside, Calif., told the Sun-News in a phone interview Tuesday. "I don't know what they're going to do."
The Marine, who joined the military just months after graduating from O-ate High School in 2008, said he was "just a little shocked" at the news, which comes just days after another Marine, Kentucky native Lance Cpl. Aspar Andres, made national news in a similar plea for leniency for his own father, a Guatemala native awaiting deportation after 25 years in the country.
Eutimo Rios, a construction worker, and his wife, a housekeeper, were born in Mexico - he in Durango, she in Jalisco, and came north more than 20 years ago, to start a family. They attempted to attain legal residency, but caught the attention of authorities and were deported, separated from their boys, then in elementary school, and their youngest, a daughter,
In recent months, after waiting the requisite amount of time, they had hired an El Paso attorney to re-start the process of getting legal residency.
"They've been having meetings and signing papers," said a bewildered Gabriel Rios on Tuesday.
His father, who has no criminal record, was taken into custody just down the street from home, he said, for reasons unknown, at about 7 a.m. Tuesday. (A spokesperson for ICE did not return a call for comment about Eutimo Rios' case Tuesday.)
"I don't understand," Gabriel Rios said. "Why would ICE go after my dad? I know he's an illegal, but he doesn't do anything with drugs. He has a clean record. He just works. That's all he does."
Now, he's afraid his mother might be next.
"She came here just to make a better life for us," Gabriel Rios said. "She's a hard worker. She works lots, even weekends, works every day practically and she helps a lot of people. They're pretty much like citizens. They pay taxes even though they're not from here, and my dad is a hard worker. Since he's not a citizen, he has to put up with a lot, but he does it for us."
The situation is infuriating, he said.
"I don't understand it anymore," Gabriel Rios said. "I was just shocked."
Retired Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Cesar Paz, a friend of the family for more than a decade, said family and friends called congressmen and senators, asking for a temporary reprieve, but haven't heard anything encouraging.
"Their life is here," said Paz, 41. "They've raised their kids here. Their kids are U.S. citizens. This is where they live. They considered this place home."
Especially painful is Eric Rios' situation, said Paz, whose own son is serving in Afghanistan with the Army.
"Their son's willing to serve this country - and even die for it - and he's having to go through this indignity," he said. "It saddens me ... It's a damn shame."
While Paz said he understands the seriousness of the law, just 100 years ago, Rios' crime didn't even exist.
"A lot of these people that come over, they're good people trying to get a good life," Paz said. "When you look at what's going on there now (in continuing drug cartel violence) they're dying left and right. I have family down there and it's really hard. They have no way of being able to fend for themselves, let alone their family. The only way they can get ahead, sometimes, is to come over here. They're not bad people. All they want to do is work and have the opportunity, if not for themselves, for their kids."
He added, "That's the story of this country."
Ashley Meeks can be reached at (575) 541-5462.
