Thursday, March 15, 2018 | 11:34 a.m.
SAN FRANCISCO — A couple fleeing immigration officials in a rural California farm town died after losing control of their sport utility vehicle and crashing into a power pole, police said.
The deaths on Tuesday happened as advocates for immigrants say U.S. immigration agents are increasingly using unmarked cars to pull over farmworkers in the state's agricultural heartland as part of the Trump Administration's heightened immigration crackdown in California.
Agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents put on emergency lights in their car Tuesday to pull over the couple's SUV, according to a statement from the Delano Police Department.
The SUV raced away when the agents exited their vehicle, and minutes later veered onto a dirt shoulder, overturned and crashed into a power pole, killing the couple, the statement said.
The victims were identified as 35-year-old Santos Garcia and 33-year-old Marcelina Garcia.
Diana Tellefson, executive director of the United Farm Workers Foundation, said they were farmworkers living in Delano, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) north of Los Angeles, and were looking for work when immigration agents tried to stop them.
The couple, originally from the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, mainly spoke Mixtec, an indigenous language.
"The fact that they could not speak English or Spanish likely added to the fear they felt when they realized it was ICE stopping them," Tellefson said.
She said the couple left behind six children, ages 8 to 18, and a 1-year-old granddaughter.
Tellefson wouldn't say whether the children are in the country illegally or if they plan to stay in California.
Jennie Pasquarella, director of immigrants' rights at the ACLU of Southern California, said in a statement that her office in recent weeks has received multiple reports from California's farm-rich Central Valley about immigration agents staking out the roads farmworkers travel to get to work and pulling them over during early morning hours.
Pasquarella said immigration agents are reportedly pulling over farmworkers while in unmarked vehicles.
"As in this case, drivers and passengers stop, after being signaled to pull over, believing the officers to be police, but only come to learn after being approached, questioned, and arrested that the officers are actually ICE," she said in a statement.
Agency spokeswoman Lori K. Haley said the officers first went to the couple's home looking for another man wanted for deportation and followed them the couple as they drove away.
Though Santos Garcia matched the description of the targeted man, the agency said he was not the person.
Santos Garcia, who had a 2014 DUI conviction, had voluntarily returned to Mexico three times between 2008 and 2017 and was removed once more in 2017, Haley said.
Marcelina Garcia had no prior encounters with the agency, she added.
"As the officers departed the location of the attempted engagement, they came across the overturned vehicle and immediately dialed 911 for assistance," she said.
