Teen from Iowa killed after ICE returns him to Mexico
Manuel Antonio Cano Pacheco came to America as a little boy and had a full life in Des Moines, Iowa, his mother said. He had acquired DACA status, attended high school and had family -- three siblings and a 1-year-old son, she said.
"He was really happy in Iowa. It was the only home he knew," she said. "He loved school and loved soccer. On his days off from school he would work as a mechanic."
But Cano Pacheco ran afoul of the United States' changing immigration laws. On April 24, the 19-year-old was sent back to Mexico because of misdemeanor convictions, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Customs said.
Three weeks later, he died in a country he barely knew.
He was murdered in Zacatecas, the section of north-central Mexico where he'd gone to live, because "he was in the wrong place at the wrong time," his Iowa friend Juan Verduzco told The Des Moines Register. One of his acquaintances also was slain, Verduzco said.
Cano Pacheco was buried in Mexico, but his family didn't attend the funeral.
"The entire family is devastated," said his mother, who asked that her name not be used because she is undocumented and fears deportation. "I almost wanted to return to Mexico but my other children don't have passports and I would risk not being able to come back. We've never left the country before."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/teen-from-iowa-killed-after-ice-returns-him-to-mexico/ar-AAyph7M?li=BBnb7Kz