ICE agents arrest 73-year-old grandfather in Louisiana who has lived in US for 45 years

Forty-five years ago, Jose Francisco Garcia Rodriguez fled Cuba on a ship provided by the United States for people seeking refuge from the Cuban government.

While on his way to work on Monday, the 73-year-old grandfather was picked up by immigration enforcement agents near his Lafayette home. He sits today in an ICE processing center in Pine Prairie, a village in rural Evangeline Parish.

One of Rodriguez’s stepsons posted Monday on Facebook that his father had been taken by ICE agents at a Circle K at the corner of Johnston Street and Guilbeau Road. The family has been quiet since that time.

On Thursday evening, though, Rodriguez’s stepdaughter Christian Cooper Riggs, of Lafayette, posted a video on social media telling the story of her father’s life and asking for help.

Rodriguez arrived in the U.S. with just the clothes on his back, Riggs said, with no education and not speaking English. He struggled and made mistakes, paid for them, and for the next 43 years lived a good life, raising a family and working hard labor for 40-60 hours a week, paying taxes and paying into Social Security, which he never used.

Three weeks ago, Rodriguez told Riggs he was afraid ICE would pick him up and deport him. Because of his earlier troubles, Rodriguez wasn’t able to become an official citizen, despite 10 years of trying, she said.

He was told by officials and lawyers three years ago, Riggs said, that it would be better to stop trying, to lay low and continue to work.

“I understand that we have an immigration problem. I do,” Riggs said. “I understand that our country cannot harbor every single person that crosses its borders. I understand that there are really bad people that we have to find.”

But starting with a 73-year-old grandfather who has a heart condition and who is the primary caretaker of his wife with dementia is not the solution, she said.

“It is a problem that has to be fixed with a surgeon’s blade. Not a machete.”

Riggs asked the public to contact their elected officials to ask for their help in freeing Rodriguez. And she asked for prayers.

ICE agents have reportedly been seen elsewhere in Lafayette this week.

Tiffany De Leon Steward of Lafayette said she saw a man in an SUV with Federal Enforcement written on it sitting in her Oakbourne neighborhood Monday watching Hispanic workers as they put a new roof on a house.

Others reported on social media that they’ve seen ICE agents in shopping centers and a store specializing in Hispanic food.