The owner of a Rainier, Oregon, landscaping business who has a dismissed misdemeanor sexual abuse charge in Columbia County is leaving the country after being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The family is selling all of their belongings and accompanying Oscar Rodriguez, 44, of Rainier, even though his school-aged child was born in America.
His other Columbia County court violations are a 2003 citation for operating a vehicle without driving privileges, and a 2012 citation for tossing a lit cigarette onto a St. Helens road.
The local family's move comes amid President Donald Trump administration's federal immigration crackdown.
The UC Berkeley's Deportation Data Project reports arrests quadrupled during the first nine months of the second Trump administration, while deportations rose by a factor of 4.6 due to more detention spaces and fewer releases.
The project's information comes from U.S. government immigration enforcement data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.
ICE agents detained Rodriguez in November at the Longview Lowe's off Ocean Beach Highway.
A person who requested anonymity caught the arrest on video, which shows Rodriguez being taken into custody by masked officers as they escort him through the parking lot.
Rodriguez was still in custody at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma as of Wednesday.
It is not clear when he will be deported, according to family friend Patty Dering, of Longview, and the family has not set a date to leave the country.
His 9-year-old has never been to Mexico, said Rodriguez's wife, who The Daily News is not identifying by name. She said Rodriguez has been in the United States since 1996.
Public records confirm the couple owned a Rainier home.
Rodriguez's wife is also from Mexico and had been working to secure her legal status in the U.S., she said. She is originally from Aguascalientes, a city in the Mexican State of Aguascalientes, about a seven-hour drive from Mexico City, she said.
The wife has not been detained by ICE.
Rodriguez owned Francisco Garden Service in Rainier, but his wife said the landscaping business is now closed.
Dering said the wife tried to keep the business afloat but couldn't make it without her husband.
The last post on the Francisco Garden Service's Facebook page was on Nov. 21, the day before Rodriguez was detained by immigration officers.
Dering is helping the family sell the 1990 Nissan truck in which Rodriguez was pulled over when detained by ICE on Nov. 22.
In the video, one of the officers is seen getting into that truck and parking it in an empty parking space at Lowes.
The family first planned to use the expected $3,500 from the sale to pay for a lawyer, but now they've decided to leave the country.
Rodriguez has signed documents to be deported, said Dering, who knows the family from attending Kelso's Kingdom Hall, where Jehovah's Witnesses worship.
According to Columbia Country Circuit Court records, Rodriguez was indicted on March 27, 2003, for contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor.
The class A misdemeanor charge was dismissed by Columbia County prosecutors two months later.
Prosecutors did not respond to The Daily News questions about why the charges were dismissed, and the details of the case are sealed.
His lawyer listed in court records could also not be reached for comment.
In a January court filing, Dering requests official records of the dismissed charges to bring to a Jan. 15 immigration hearing. She writes the 2003 accused crime is "being used against Mr. Oscar Rodriguez and his lawyer needs a certified copy."
She also requests the official record for a misdemeanor to which he pleaded guilty in 2012 for throwing away lighted material in a prohibited area.
A ticket from the traffic violation says he threw a lit cigarette onto a St. Helens roadway and was fined $200.
