ICE defends detention, deportation of Soldotna family as vigils held and lawmakers probe agency actions

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities on Monday defended the arrest of a Soldotna mother and her three children amid vigils for the family and a state legislative hearing on ICE’s actions in Alaska.

Sonia Espinoza Arriaga, a McDonald’s employee who’d recently married a U.S. citizen, and her three kids ages 18, 16 and 5 were taken into custody in Soldotna on Feb. 17.

The next day, Espinoza Arriaga and the two younger children were deported to Mexico, where they remain. The family is in Jalisco state, according to the family’s attorney. Since Sunday, Jalisco state has been wracked with street violence after the Mexican government killed the head of a notorious drug cartel.

Espinoza Arriaga, an asylum seeker, was fleeing cartel violence as well as fear of a past partner when she entered the U.S. in 2023, her husband, Alexander Sanchez-Ramos, has said.

In a statement Monday, ICE spokesperson Christine Cuttita said Espinoza Arriaga and her family “were issued a final order of removal as a family unit Jan. 13 after she failed to show up for her immigration court hearing.”

“ICE located and arrested Espinoza in Soldotna, Alaska on Feb. 17 during a targeted vehicle stop,” the statement said. The mother “is now facing the consequences of making the decision to not follow that lawful order to report to ICE,” Cuttita wrote.

Cuttita wrote that “upon Espinoza’s request, ICE ensured that her family remained unified and brought the entire family unit to ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations field office in Anchorage for processing. At no time were the children separated from their mother while in ICE custody.”

“ICE does NOT separate families,” wrote Cuttita. “Parents are given a choice to either take their minor children with them or place them in the care of someone they designate. This is consistent with past administration’s immigration enforcement.”

While Espinoza Arriaga and her two other children were deported thousands of miles away to Mexico, her 18-year-old son was processed as an adult and held at the Anchorage jail before being transferred to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington.

Their cases are in the process of both a federal habeas corpus petition and an appeal in immigration court, according to Lara Nations, the attorney.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing held in Juneau on Monday, legislators heard from advocates as well as representatives of state agencies after the detention of Espinoza Arriaga and her children.

The hearing was organized by Rep. Andrew Gray, an Anchorage Democrat, and included speakers from advocacy and legal organizations as well as clergy members and representatives of state agencies, including the Alaska Department of Public Safety and the Alaska Department of Corrections.

The Alaska State Troopers have no role in enforcing immigration law, said Leon Morgan, a deputy commissioner with the Alaska Department of Public Safety.

“We don’t coordinate with ICE for immigration enforcement,” Morgan testified.

In criminal cases, “we will certainly work with our federal partners,” he said. But civil immigration enforcement matters aren’t in that purview, he said.

“That’s been a long-standing policy with the department,” Morgan said.

Some law enforcement agencies have formal cooperation agreements with ICE through programs in which state or local law enforcement officers are trained, certified and authorized by ICE to do functions of immigration enforcement such as serving and executing administrative warrants on people in their custody. Troopers are not part of that program, Morgan said.

Only two Alaska agencies — the Alaska Department of Corrections and the Kodiak Police Department — are currently listed by ICE as participating.

[Former ICE instructor says agency slashed training for new officers, lied to Congress]

Asked about media reports that Espinoza Arriaga and her kids had been taken to an Alaska State Troopers post in Soldotna, Morgan said he thought ICE had maybe switched vehicles in the parking lot.

“I don’t think we leveraged any trooper assets to do that,” he said.

The Alaska Department of Corrections has an agreement to hold federal detainees of all kinds — both those charged with federal crimes and civil immigration detainees, testified Zane Nighswonger, director of institutions with the department.

Immigration detainees are subject to the same conditions as criminal defendants in jail, but “we do keep them separate from the prisoner population, as they’re non-criminally charged,” he said.

People usually spend about 72 hours in the Anchorage jail until they are flown to the Northwest Detention Center in Washington, where some stay for months or even years.

The committee also heard testimony from Soldotna-area residents and community leaders, including a mom who said her daughter was in the same kindergarten class as 5-year-old Matias Espinoza Arriaga. Alison Flack spoke of working with the boy as a classroom volunteer just days before he was taken into ICE custody.

“He was working so hard. He was following my instructions and sounding out his words,” she said. “I could tell how proud he felt.”

A few days later, her daughter told her the child hadn’t been at school. When she read news accounts of the family’s detention, “I immediately got a lump in my throat,” she said.

Families were shaken to hear that he had been detained along with his mother and brothers. Flack said she wasn’t sure how to explain the situation to her daughter.

“Should I tell her that he moved and just hope and pray that she doesn’t find out the truth?” she said.

More than 120 people showed up for a meeting in Soldotna to talk about what happened to the family, said Meredith Harbor, a pastor with Christ Lutheran Church in Soldotna. Many of them didn’t know the family personally, she said.

A vigil for the family Monday night drew an overflow crowd at St. John United Methodist Church in South Anchorage.

Lead pastor Andy Bartel said he wasn’t surprised by the large turnout.

“I think most people want to feel empowered, that they have a voice, that we are a nation that has been by the people and for the people,” Bartel said.

Daily News photojournalist Marc Lester contributed.