Ronal Ramos-Delcid had planned to spend a quiet Sunday morning with his 14-month-old son.

The 29-year-old construction worker from Dundalk drove into Highlandtown, intending to pick up carryout food and take the child to play in Patterson Park, according to his wife, Nathalia Yela.

But the morning took a dramatic turn when federal immigration agents stopped Ramos-Delcid’s car in the 3500 block of East Fayette Street around 8:45. Authorities later said Ramos-Delcid, originally from Honduras, had a pending immigration order for his removal.

The incident might have drawn little attention if it weren’t for community activist Buzz Grambo, who has earned the nickname “The Paul Revere of Patterson Park” for his efforts to warn neighbors of the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. He captured part of the episode on video and shared it on social media.

Advertise with us

After her husband’s arrest, Yela, a legal permanent resident of the U.S., said ICE agents called her Sunday morning, telling her to meet them outside the University of Maryland Medical Center to pick up her son.

Later, her husband called her from a temporary ICE holding facility in downtown Baltimore. He recounted how ICE agents fired a stun gun at him when he reached for the child in the car, according to Yela.

“My husband told me that that they snatched him [the child] from his hands with force,” she said.

Yela said her husband arrived in the U.S. from Honduras alone at age 16.

“He is a good husband, a hardworking man who has not hurt anyone and has paid his taxes,” she said. She said she was unsure about his immigration status, because “when he arrived in the U.S., he was in process, but I don’t know what happened.”

Advertise with us

Ramos-Delcid had no criminal record and was targeted for deportation because of his improper immigration status, Yela said. In a separate interview, Gustavo Marin Garcia, an immigration attorney Yela had consulted, confirmed her account of her husband’s immigration case.

Yela said her husband told her after his arrest that he was confined to a room with 30 others and no private bathroom facilities and was given only cookies to eat. He expected to be transferred to an ICE detention center in Louisiana on Wednesday, she said.

An ICE spokesperson said Ramos-Delcid was arrested in a “targeted vehicle stop” because he had a “final order of removal.”

She did not immediately respond to questions about the alleged use of a stun gun.

Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for public affairs, said in a statement this week that during the incident ICE agents “called for backup and requested help from the Baltimore City Police Department. Baltimore City Police NEVER arrived to help our officers.”

Advertise with us

City police spokesperson Lindsey Eldridge disputed that claim. Eldridge said in an email that she listened to the tape of a 911 call in which an ICE agent said they had made “a traffic stop of an individual believed to be inebriated.”

The call came in at 8:49 and was dispatched five minutes later. Officers arrived at 8:59 and found the ICE agents, Ramos-Delcid and the child had departed, Eldridge said.

In the interim, Grambo arrived, yelling that he believed ICE wasn’t welcome in Baltimore. Grambo said in an interview that an ICE agent pushed him several times, an episode captured by his wife on video.

Yela said she expects her husband to be deported to Honduras. She does not know how she will provide for her son without him; her husband worked days and she worked nights, so someone was always home with the child.

“I’m very sad and stressed, and I don’t know what to do,” she said.