The father of a U.S. Marine who was quickly deported last fall after he and his wife were detained trying to visit their daughter at Camp Pendleton is now suing ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. The complaint alleges the agencies violated both federal law and Esteban Rios Sosa’s righ ts in deporting him to Mexico, despite a pending visa application and what his attorney said should have been protection from enforcement. Filed in federal court in the Southern District of California on Wednesday, the lawsuit asks a judge to order his return to the U.S. Neither ICE nor DHS have responded to request for comment on the lawsuit, but previously alleged Rios Sosa was a violent convicted criminal, which he and his attorney both say was completely false. On Sept. 28, Rios Sosa and his wife Luisa Rodriguez were with their son Steve Rios, then a Marine Sergeant, trying to visit their daughter Ashley Rios on Camp Pendleton. At the time, she was about four months pregnant and living on base because she’s married to a Marine. The Rios family – who have lived in Oceanside for decades – said they had visited the base several times before with no issue, but this time they were stopped at the gate. Rios Sosa and Luisa were detained, taken to ICE’s field office in the federal building in downtown San Diego, placed in ankle monitors and released, told to return for a check-in with the agency at the same office on Oct. 9. At that subsequent check-in, Rios Sosa and Rodriguez were detained again, led away in handcuffs. Rios Sosa was wearing what his son said was his lucky shirt: bright red, reading “Proud Dad of a U.S. Marine.” Rodriguez was taken to the Otay Mesa Detention Center, where she was held for a few weeks before a judge ordered her released and her removal case was dismissed. After one night in the basement of the federal building, Rios Sosa was deported. “At first, we were calm because we didn’t think anything bad was going to happen,” Rios Sosa said in Spanish during an interview Wednesday, recalling his first detention. “We already had work permits, we had Social Security numbers.” That’s because Rios Sosa and his attorney say the couple had pending U visa applications, and with that, work permits as well as what’s known as “deferred action,” which his attorney said should have functioned as a shield from enforcement. “Mr. Rios Sosa’s case is an example of the government’s broken promises to people like Mr. Rios Sosa and his wife,” said Monika Langarica, deputy legal director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. “The government made a promise to them to protect them from detention and deportation, but they reneged on that promise.” The lawsuit says in 2022, Rodriguez applied for a U visa, which is a visa for noncitizen victims of crime who assist law enforcement in the investigation or prosecution of that crime. A woman Rodriguez did not know attacked her outside a bar in 2006, breaking her nose and requiring surgery, the lawsuit says, adding that she filed a report and cooperated with police. Rios Sosa was included as a derivative of her U visa application, according to the lawsuit, present for the attack and caring for her in the aftermath. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services indicated in 2024 that Rodriguez’s application would be approved but the agency had reached its cap on U visas for the year, issuing her work authorization and placing her in that deferred action status, according to the complaint. The lawsuit says Rios Sosa disclosed in the application both a 1994 arrest for a domestic violence incident with a previous partner, for which charges against him were dropped, as well as a 1999 removal order. The complaint says USCIS was aware of both when it granted him deferred action in January 2025, valid through 2029. Langarica says that means he never should have been detained or deported. Rios Sosa said he asked to see a judge but was denied. After his deportation, DHS said in a statement Rios Sosa was charged with domestic violence and aggravated assaulted with a deadly weapon in 2020, which he and his attorney said was completely false. DHS also said neither he nor his wife “had any legal basis to stay within the country.” “Since his detention, deportation, and ICE’s fabricated press release, Mr. Rios Sosa has suffered immeasurable harm,” the lawsuit reads. “He has remained separated from his wife and children for over nine months and counting—during which time he has suffered from depression, sleeplessness, hair loss, and despair. He feels extremely alone having had to leave behind his loved ones, family home, stable work, and life in North San Diego County.” “It’s terrible,” Rios Sosa said in Spanish on Wednesday, noting that this is the longest he and his wife have ever been apart. “I can’t really sleep, because I’m constantly thinking about what’s going to happen to me and my family.” “Mr. Rios Sosa has also struggled through the unbearable knowledge of the effects that his deportation has had on the people he loves the most: his wife Luisa and son Steve are themselves experiencing depression and financial hardship in Mr. Rios Sosa’s absence,” the complaint continues. “Steve has left the U.S. Marines and has experienced intense disillusionment with how the country he served treated his father. Ashley is heartbroken by her father’s absence during such a momentous period in her life.” That was the birth of her first child in April, which Rios Sosa missed, now living in Veracruz. “It was very difficult for me because she’s my only daughter,” he said in Spanish Wednesday. “We were all so happy and excited that we were going to witness the birth of my grandson. But unfortunately, because of what happened, I couldn’t be there. God willing, I’ll be back there soon, and I’ll finally get to meet him and hold him.” ...read more read less