ICE Detention and Enforcement Practices

CBS reports that Arlit Martinez‑Carrada, an undocumented Maryland mother arrested by ICE on Jan. 3 in Salisbury, plans to accept deportation to Mexico after the agency kept her in custody as her 15‑year‑old U.S.-citizen son, Kevin Martinez, died of cancer without her at his bedside. Martinez‑Carrada, who has no criminal record but has crossed the border illegally four times since 2004, was initially held at a federal building in Baltimore; her attorney says an ICE officer there promised she would not be transferred so she could attend the funeral, but within days she was moved to the Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey. Kevin’s oncologist warned the day after her arrest that he was likely to die that day, and the lawyer describes having to tell Martinez‑Carrada through glass at the Baltimore holding facility that her son had just died, as ICE continued transfer and detention rather than releasing her on humanitarian grounds. She was ultimately brought back for Kevin’s late‑January funeral, but her remaining children and husband say the system’s handling of the case convinced her to return to Mexico rather than keep fighting removal in the U.S. The case is circulating widely online as another example of Operation Metro‑style interior enforcement separating families in medically critical moments, raising sharp questions about what discretion ICE is exercising in civil cases involving U.S.-citizen children with life‑threatening illnesses.