By Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Posted June 12, 2025
Antonio Chairez Ríos stepped out from behind a gate enclosing the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office south of Albuquerque on Friday, prompting cheers from several dozen activists who had been waiting three hours to learn whether he would be detained and eventually deported.
His release late Friday morning meant the grandfather of two — if only for a few more days — would not be sent away from the country he’s lived in for at least 20 years.
For the last nine years, Chairez Ríos, an immigrant from México, has dutifully attended every annual check-in appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, each time securing a stay of deportation, according to his attorney Rebecca Kitson.
His next check-in had been scheduled for September, but authorities abruptly re-scheduled it a few days ago for 9 a.m. on Friday, Kitson said. That was not a good sign, she said.
She assumed the check-in really served as a way for ICE agents to rack up another deportation without having to go through the trouble of arresting someone at their home or in public.
News reports elsewhere and reports from her colleagues suggest ICE is increasingly arresting people at annual check-ins, with agents no longer allowed or willing to use discretion or consider the details of individual cases when deciding whether to arrest and deport someone, she said.
“From the indications that we received, we were pretty clear that their intent is to arrest everyone now,” she said. “It’s really just easier to arrest people who show up.”
Chairez Ríos was deported in 2006 but then re-entered the country after he received photos showing that his two young daughters were living on the streets of Albuquerque with their mother, who was addicted to drugs, Kitson said.
“In his mind there was no other choice” but to return, Kitson said. “Eventually, he got here and was granted full custody of his children because there was no one else, because they were in severe danger.”
Since returning to take care of his kids, a judge issued a stay of deportation repeatedly, allowing him to raise his daughters and work. He took a tough construction job and suffered a traumatic brain injury after falling 20 feet onto concrete, Kitson said. He was briefly in a coma from the injury, she said.
The exploitation he suffered as an undocumented immigrant in the construction industry prompted Kitson to seek what’s known as a “T visa” on his behalf, which are temporary visas for victims of human trafficking.
The fact that the visa application remains pending marks one reason she hoped Chairez Rios and the attorney who accompanied him to the check-in could argue he be allowed to stay in the United States a little bit longer, she said.
Soon after Kitson learned that Chairez Ríos’s check-in had been re-scheduled, she sounded the alarm to various immigration advocacy groups. Despite the short notice, nearly 100 people showed up at the ICE office, chanting and picketing for several hours.
Chairez Ríos arrived with his daughters and two grand-kids about half an hour before the check-in, smiling and wiping tears from his eyes as he saw the crowd gathered with signs that said “Keep Antonio here!”
He walked into the HSI office holding a grandson in his arms, taking a final look back at the crowd before what could be his last time in the U.S. According to Kitson, deportation would mean he’d have to stay in Mexico for at least 10 years before he had any legal way of returning.
According to Kitson, the events that unfolded over the next two and a half hours in a nondescript government office provided an increasingly rare reprieve from President Donald Trump’s new mass deportation push.
Chairez Ríos’s legal team fought against an apparent detention order, Kitson said, which she described as an informal appeal that made its way up through several supervisors stationed outside of Albuquerque, Kitson said.
ICE supervisors were still considering the appeal by 11:30 a.m. or so. That’s about the time they gave Chairez Ríos the choice of leaving the office with an ankle monitor on or staying and waiting for a decision.
Kitson’s best guess is that Chairez Ríos will still be arrested and deported, she said. And she said he’ll be paranoid in the coming weeks about when agents could come to arrest him. But that didn’t happen Friday, she said, which is a win by itself.
Chairez Ríos spoke briefly to reporters and activists, gesturing to the device on his ankle and offering gratitude to the people who waited and chanted and prayed for him.
“They don’t have a decision yet, but I do feel powerless because it seems unfair to me that one who is not a criminal is waiting after 20 years working here,” he said in Spanish. “I would like to have a chance, because all my family is from here, my daughters, my grandchildren.”
He said agents scheduled another check-in for September, but they told him that he could be arrested at any time between now and then.
“You have no idea when they could arrest you if they decide to do that. I have no idea. It could be now, tomorrow, in a month,” he said. “It feels insecure without an answer.”
Patrick Lohmann is a reporter for Source New Mexico. This
article is republished from Source New Mexico under a Creative Commons license. Source New Mexico is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
