Eugene woman recounts the morning her dad never came home. It was ICE.

The morning that federal immigration enforcement agents took Misael Garcia Lopez, his phone pinged from the same spot for hours.

The unmoving dot near the Meadowlark Prairie parking lot in west Eugene was his family’s only clue that something was wrong. 

Garcia Lopez, a 49-year-old undocumented father from Mexico, had dropped off his 11-year-old son just over a mile away at Prairie Mountain School earlier that morning, Nov. 19, like he did every day.

When he didn’t return, his wife, daughter and younger son called his phone, but he didn’t pick up. Eventually, his phone was turned off. Worried, his daughter Jasmine Garcia Lopez, 22, drove to his phone’s location. There, she saw his truck — parked and empty.

At noon, the family finally received a call from Garcia Lopez, who said he had been taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and was in Portland. The next morning, he called again, from the Northwest ICE processing facility in Tacoma, Washington.

“He’s been there ever since,” Jasmine Garcia Lopez told Lookout Eugene-Springfield.

His family would later learn what happened in the gap between his son’s school drop-off and that first phone call, from Garcia Lopez’s account and from the truck’s dashcam footage. The arrest was first reported by KEZI 9 News.

Two unmarked vehicles began following Garcia Lopez as he drove home from the school, his daughter said. When they turned on their sirens, he pulled into the parking lot and an agent asked him to turn off his truck, which caused his dashcam to turn off.

According to Jasmine Garcia Lopez, her father then asked the agents if they had a warrant and why he was being stopped. They didn’t respond, she said, instead asking him for identification. When Garcia Lopez reached to retrieve it, the agents became alarmed, reached through his open window, opened the door from the inside and pulled him from the truck before arresting him, Jasmine said.

In the days since, his family has been trying to figure out what comes next as they await a Dec. 16 immigration court date. They fear he could be deported back to Hidalgo, Mexico, after 18 years in the United States building a life and raising a family.

“I told my dad that I would speak for him,” Jasmine said. “Just because he was taken, and he and my mom might be afraid to say something doesn’t mean that I will be afraid.”

‘Big teddy bear’

Garcia Lopez was born in 1976 in Hidalgo, near Mexico City. With no work opportunities there, he and his eldest son — Jasmine’s older brother — immigrated to the United States seeking the American dream, she said. He and Jasmine’s mother later had her and her younger brother, Leo.

Jasmine repeatedly described her dad as hardworking. He was the family’s main provider, working over the years as a mechanic, at a mill, in landscaping, as roofer and a dishwasher.

In 2020, he underwent three surgeries to reconstruct his hand after nearly losing his fingers in a mill saw-blade incident. About a year later, while still recovering, he tore his rotator cuff after falling on his arm, extending his time out of work.

“He was never the type of person staying home just doing nothing,” Jasmine said.

One could usually find him at home only on Sundays, Jasmine said. Even then, he wasn’t idle: He loves talking to birds outside and making birdhouses for himself and others in his spare time.

“Birds were kind of like his hobby, since we weren’t always around,” Jasmine said through tears. “My dad’s a really sweet person. He might look like a very serious man, but he’s a big teddy bear.”

The arrest

Garcia Lopez was detained and fingerprinted the last time he crossed the border without documentation, Jasmine said. She believes ICE may have retained that information, noting that doorbell camera footage shows the same car that pulled over her dad driving past the family’s home after the arrest.

“It’s just really odd that same vehicle that was waiting for him outside the school drove by our house,” she said. “Like, how do you know that’s where we live?”

Jasmine added that her older brother is in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA. The process requires submitting parental information that federal authorities may have accessed.

The night before the arrest, Jasmine’s parents discussed the possibility of an encounter with immigration enforcement. Her mother was afraid, and her dad tried to reassure her.

“He would just kind of be like, ‘Don’t be scared, we’ll be OK,’” she said. “But clearly it wasn’t OK, at least not for him.”

Jasmine said her family always knew they would pursue a family-based immigration petition for her dad once she turned 21 — the minimum age for a U.S. citizen child to petition for a parent — but they needed time to save money, especially after her dad’s recent medical struggles.

Many families don’t have the money to initiate a complicated legal process while covering their basic expenses, she said.

“A lot of people have the thought that, like, he was here for 18 years, why didn’t he try and get a citizenship and this and that,” she said. “It’s not easy. It’s not just getting to go fill out an application and have to wait to be approved.”

In a statement, ICE Public Affairs Officer Chrissy Cuttita said Garcia Lopez had “no valid immigration documents on his possession” during ICE agents’ vehicle stop.

“This alien knew the consequence of violating U.S. immigration law as he experienced the consequence of being found by authorities to be in the United States illegally when he voluntarily deported in 2007,” Cuttita said in an email.

She added that people in the U.S. without legal status can use the CBP Home App to self-deport and receive $1,000 and a free flight.

“We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right, legal way to live the American dream,” Cuttita said.

Picking up the pieces

The family launched a GoFundMe account to pay for legal fees and household expenses, raising nearly $8,000 in five days. Garcia Lopez’s first meeting with an attorney is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 25, which will determine potential next steps, Jasmine said.

Jasmine said her dad’s decision to pull into the parking lot instead of drive home likely prevented others from being arrested, because many families were returning from morning drop-offs at the same time.

In Tacoma, she said, he is surrounded by other detainees who have had similar experiences and have given each other hope and support. He calls home about twice a day from the facility, which Garcia Lopez’s daughter-in-law, Ruby Garcia Martinez, 27, said functions much like a jail.

“He tries to make them laugh, even though everything that’s going on, because he knows they’re struggling,” Garcia Martinez said.

But at home, reminders of his absence fill daily life. Jasmine’s mother barely leaves the house anymore, unless it’s to “peek her head out.” 

Jasmine is newly pregnant and has stepped into her dad’s role supporting the household, leaving little time for her job at clothing retailer Ross. Before her dad was arrested, she was trying to get a job at a hospital to save money.

Her baby will be Garcia Lopez’s first grandchild. Jasmine said she is trying to reduce her stress for the baby’s health while holding the family together.

“Next week I have my first OB appointment, and I was looking forward to coming home and, you know, telling my dad about it,” she said. “Now I won’t be able to do that.”

She now picks up and drops off her younger brother, Leo, the way her dad used to. At first Leo coped through silliness, but he has since broken down, she said. His school has offered counseling.

“He misses his dad,” Jasmine said.

Fear in the community 

Fear has rippled through the wider local Latino community as regional ICE activity intensifies.

Federal agents detained at least 11 residents as part of ICE operations in Lane County last week, advocates said. An attorney advocate on Tuesday upped the estimate to at least 15 people detained by ICE on Nov. 19 and taken to the Tacoma detention facility.

“I would expect some will choose to take voluntary departure, and others will be moved to different detention facilities around the country,” Christine Zeller-Powell, director of the Refugee and Immigrant Services Program at Catholic Community Services of Lane County, said Tuesday.

ICE has recently begun making more arrests in locations close to children, near schools and day care centers. Last week, agents arrested a teenage student during lunch in McMinnville, Oregon, which has since spurred a school walkout.

Some neighbors have reached out to her family and given them money, but “they’re also just as scared,” Jasmine said.

If her dad is deported, Jasmine said, her family will be split across two countries. Her mother and younger brother would follow him to Mexico. Jasmine would be the only person able to travel between the two.

“It would just break us apart,” she said.

Correspondent Jaime Adame contributed to this story.