Local owner still on ICE: Daughter calls mother’s detention unjust
Up and down the Rio Grande Valley these days, there are stories of people being picked up and detained by ICE agents. Most go unreported, but on occasion, families speak out about what they consider to be a gross miscarriage of justice.
Such is the case with 48-year-old Juana Melendez, now being held since Aug. 7 in an ICE detention facility near Raymondville.
One of her five children, Jacqueline Barron, says she is doing what she can to get the word out — my mom doesn’t deserve this sort of treatment.
On the other hand, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin is saying just the opposite in a statement released to the media last week:
"Juana Melendez is a criminal illegal alien who was arrested in 2022 for transporting aliens and was released under the Biden Administration. She had, previously, illegally entered the United States and was deported to Mexico on 10 different occasions. Re-entry a single time after deportation is a felony. She’s had multiple contacts with immigration officers going back to 1997 for illegal entry, including being caught with a group attempting to smuggle marijuana into the country. This was after being removed to Mexico by USBP.”
Compare that to a letter sent last Wednesday, Aug. 6, to an ICE field office director by U.S. Representative Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, who is trying to keep Melendez in the RGV, and you have a deep divide:
“Ms. Melendez has a daughter who is on her 7th year in service, and a 21-year-old son who is proudly serving overseas in the U.S. Navy. In addition, (she) has a four-year-old daughter who depends on her for care and support.”
Not only that, wrote Gonzalez, but Juana Melendez is a small business owner, owns a landscaping company, is not a danger to society, has paid her taxes and supported her family for the past 25 years.
“We should not be tearing families apart or sending U.S. children to another country. Ms. Melendez and her family are respectfully requesting additional time to submit a new application for consideration.”
The Backstory
On social media outlets like KRGV-TV’s Facebook page, the locals seem to be split on Melendez’s current plight:
“I’m sorry but she did it not just to herself but to her family. Bad decisions. Now sadly she pays the price.”
Or another response, this one showing support for the San Benito businesswoman who does landscaping work from Brownsville to McAllen:
“It is amazing to me how so many Spanish-surnamed individuals can be so cold-hearted instead of thinking, (there but) for the grace of God go I. How did they get here? I would bet that many of them have at least one parent or grandparent (who) crossed without proper documentation.”
Online, at Pacer.gov, which allows public access to federal court documents, the only mention of Juana Melendez dates back to a 2008 case related to “bringing in and harboring aliens.” She is listed as a material witness, not the defendant.
Melendez’s daughter, Jacqueline Barron, one of five children, said in a phone interview this week that her mom came to the U.S. in 1995 to find a better life. Except for a trip back to Mexico in 2007 to visit her sick mom, she’s been here ever since.
“ICE hasn’t given us any proof of what they’re saying about my mom is true or not true. But to the media, they’re saying that my mom is a criminal and defaming her character, because I know (the allegations) are not true. And then, when we ask to see the evidence they have against my mom, they haven’t even responded. She doesn’t even know when her court date is set for.”
For now, Barron says she and her siblings visit their mom at the ICE detention facility near Raymondville on Sundays.
“Visitation is from 1 to 5, and at least her spirits are holding up. She’s a strong woman.”
Lot more to the Barron interview, the Juana Melendez story. Check out The Advance News podcast — ICE Escapades — at anjournal.com. New episode should be up on Wednesday.
“My mother-in-law is at the same facility with my mom. She got detained when she went for her regular checkup with ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement). When I go visit my mom, I hear a lot of stories of other people who were just working and got detained, and now they’re doing their time there.”
In the meantime, Jacqueline Barron says she’s working to keep her mom’s landscaping business up and running while she prays that her mom will be allowed to remain in the U.S., where she’s raised her children and built a business.
Other ICE News
In the beginning, the Trump Administration said that ICE agents were going to focus on finding the “worst of the worst” living in the U.S. illegally.
Those apprehensions are indeed reported by the Department of Homeland Security — murderers, rapists, child molesters captured.
In fact, in a press release published July 29, 2025, an ICE spokesperson said that was the focus of the illegal-immigrant apprehension mission now underway:
“As part of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) ongoing effort to protect American communities from violent criminal aliens, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested multiple individuals with serious criminal convictions ranging from predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, to meth trafficking, and failure to stop and render aid in a fatal car crash.”
The ICE arrests are a proven success, claims the July 29 DHS press release:
“The Biden Administration allowed dangerous criminals to pour into our country,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “President Trump and Secretary Noem unleashed ICE to arrest these criminal illegal aliens. From pedophiles to drug traffickers, ICE is prioritizing arresting the worst of the worst. We will not allow criminal illegals to terrorize American communities.”
Other news, however, is coming out now on a regular basis that mirror stories like that of the RGV’s Juana Melendez, which often paint a different story.
For example, here are the headlines to some of these sourced ICE stories. Anyone can go online, use any search engine, type in any of the headlines printed below, along with the news source, and the stories should pop up.
Not fake news:
# “Tuberculosis spawning in crowded, dirty ICE detention centers.” The American Prospect.
# “ICE to access Medicaid database in latest Trump's immigration crackdown.” News Nation Now.
# “U.S. citizens jailed in LA ICE raids speak out. They (ICE agents) came ready to attack.” The Guardian.
# “Trump asks (the U.S. Supreme Court) to allow profiling in California ICE raids.” San Francisco Chronicle.
# “Masked ICE agents kidnapped teenager who was walking his dog.” Truthout.org.
# “Queens girl, 6, and mom grabbed by ICE at routine New York City check-in.” NBC New York.
# “Migrants vanish into opaque ICE detention system.” Wall Street Journal.
# “Teen with disabilities reportedly detained by ICE outside LA school.” KTLA.
# “Nursing mother unlawfully detained by ICE, attorney says.” KEYT.com.
# “His name is Jesus. He’s a Carpenter. ICE arrested him.” The Bulwark.
# “Law used to kick out Nazis could be used to strip citizenship from many more Americans.” CNN.
# “Despite promise to remove worst of the worst, ICE has arrested only 6 percent of known immigrant murderers.” NBC News.
# “At Home Depot, ICE raids terrorize the workers who helped build LA. They just come and grab you.” The Guardian.