SAN DIEGO — SAN DIEGO (AP) — The father of a Marine arrested by immigration authorities while visiting his pregnant daughter at Camp Pendleton has a criminal record that includes charges of domestic violence and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday.
Esteban Rios was deported to Mexico in 1999, then deported from the United States again in 2005 and an immigration judge ordered his deportation in 2020 after entering the country illegally for a third time, the department said.
The statement was the first detailed report provided by the Department of Homeland Security since Marine Steve Rios said last week that his father was arrested after visiting the military base in Southern California, then released with ankle monitors and detained again when he reported days later to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to orders.
The Department of Homeland Security did not initially provide details when asked several times Tuesday by The Associated Press for information about any criminal record Esteban Rios had, saying only that “criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the United States,” and the department said it had no further information to release.
On Thursday — one day after the AP published a story on Esteban Rios, and two days after it sought details from the administration — the Department of Homeland Security released the detailed accounting of his criminal record. The ministry also accused the AP of “deliberately withholding facts,” even though the agency did not provide the AP with the information it accused the news organization of obfuscating.
Steve Rios from Oceanside, California, He told San Diego station KNSD That his parents inspired him to enlist in the Marine Corps. They came to the United States from Mexico more than 30 years ago and have washed cars and cleaned homes their entire lives, he said.
“It just made them proud, didn’t it? I saw all the struggles they went through,” Steve Rios told the station. “The least I can do, right, is serve this country and try to spend some time in it.”
Steve Rios said he and his parents were picking up his younger sister and her husband, also a Marine, in Pendleton on Sept. 28, as they did every weekend for the past few months while she was expecting her first child. After stopping at the gate, ICE officials arrived to detain both parents, later releasing them with ankle monitors. He said his father was deported on October 10.
The Rios family told the station that the parents had no criminal record and had pending applications for a green card sponsored by Steve and a work permit.
In response to AP inquiries, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, issued a statement Tuesday saying: “Under President (Donald) Trump and Secretary (Kristi) Noem, if you break the law — including domestic violence and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon — you will face consequences. Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the United States.”
The statement did not say anything about Esteban Ríos, including whether he had been arrested or charged with any crime or whether he had any immigration history.
When the AP followed up to ask whether Esteban Rios and his wife had a criminal history, Luis Alani, a communications strategist at ICE, wrote, “By law, ICE has no information about these aliens. To be clear, there is no information we can disclose.”