Venezuelan man went to Sacramento to change his address. Now he’s in ICE custody
All Wilfredo Rivero wanted to do was update his address when he woke up at 3:30 a.m. last week to drive to Sacramento’s immigration office.
He hoped it would move the location of his pending asylum case from Chicago closer to his home in Siskiyou County, said Rivero’s girlfriend Victoria Colmenero.
Instead, he was questioned for hours, arrested and now awaits potential deportation in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility near Bakersfield. Rivero’s family and Colmenero maintain he has no criminal history or gang affiliation in the U.S. or his homeland of Venezuela.
“He was trying to do things right and now he’s just detained,” said Colmenero, who accompanied him to the appointment.
An ICE spokesperson confirmed, through an email statement, Rivero was arrested and had his parole revoked on March 27. The agency did not specify why the parole was revoked, but said he will remain in custody for the “duration of his immigration removal proceedings.”
Rivero’s family and Colmenero argue the arrest is discriminatory and unlawful given that Rivero entered the country last year by seeking asylum — a legal protection which allows an individual to remain in the United States.
A federal immigration database shows Rivero, 24, had a court date in July 2027 in Chicago. The docket for his case began in September, when Colmenero said Rivero legally entered the country.
Rivero’s arrest highlights a growing trend across the country of ICE arresting people who show up at its offices for check-ins or changes of address, according to multiple immigration attorneys.
“It’s cruel,” said Kevin Johnson, a UC Davis immigration professor. “And it’s going to punish the most law-abiding people, the people who show up.”
Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump’s administration has ended several protections previously given to migrants. In March, the Department of Homeland Security ended a program that offered parole for some Venezuelans. Colmenero was unsure if Rivero’s parole came from program. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Immigrants, many of which entered the country legally, are now “caught between a rock and a hard place,” said Sacramento attorney Kishwer Vikaas.
“Even doing things the right way, it’s kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t system right now.”
Detained for five hours
Rivero was born in an agricultural region of Venezuela, where he spent much of early life working in the fields.
In 2015, Venezuela began to experience sudden declines in oil prices. The country has since faced years of economic turmoil, political conflicts and seen an exodus of millions of residents.
He immigrated to the country in September to provide a better life for his 4-year-old daughter and sick mother who faces medical costs, Colmenero said.
“He came here to seek protection and to be able to provide for his family,” she said.
To enter the U.S., Colmenero said Rivero used the CBP One application, which allowed migrants to schedule an appointment with Customs and Border Protection before coming into the country under former President Joe Biden’s administration. Trump, on his first day back in the White House, signed an executive order that called for an end to the application “as a method of paroling or facilitating the entry of otherwise inadmissible aliens into the United States.”
Rivero met Colmenero in October while working at a strawberry nursery near the border of California and Oregon. Colmenero, who was born in the U.S., oversaw quality control. Rivero handled the strawberry plants directly.
The couple moved in together one month later. He helped Colmenero improve her Spanish skills and regularly cooked her Venezuelan food such as arepas, a type of flatbread eaten in South America.
They also enjoyed watching Disney movies. Rivero’s favorite is “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” a 2002 animated film that follows a mustang stallion captured by the U.S. Cavalry in the 19th century.
On March 27, the couple woke up early to make a five-hour drive to the ICE office near the Capitol which oversees multiple counties including Siskiyou. Rivero’s court case is years away, which is normal under the current immigration system.
Upon arrival, Colmenero recalled that Rivero was moved to a private room where she could not enter. Hours passed and Colmenero became suspicious of the long wait time.
She searched up immigration resources online and found NorCal Resist, an activist organization based in Sacramento. A volunteer attorney for the group soon arrived and demanded answers for Rivero’s detainment.
Five hours passed before Colmenero and the attorney were told that Rivero would be detained because “he entered the country illegally.”
Vikaas said ICE can revoke parole on a case by case basis, citing reasons like “public safety, fraud or national security concern.”
“Those are words this administration has been using with this particular parole program since day one,” Vikaas said.
‘Scared to be detained’
Colmenero said she was given 10 minutes to talk to her boyfriend before departing for the day. In their conversation, Rivero recounted hours of questioning about his tattoos and if he had any affiliation with gangs including Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal organization based in Venezuela that has gained notoriety under the Trump administration.
Colmenero said Rivero has two tattoos on his body — one of his name and another in memory of his child that died. Rivero’s name did not show up in an online Siskiyou County’s court system search.
“He looked really scared,” said Colmenero, while crying. “He’s never in prison or anything like that so I know he was very scared to be detained.”
It is not clear what the future holds for Rivero. He has since been taken to the Golden State Annex in McFarland, according to ICE’s online detainee locator system.
Immigration lawyers speculate that he could be given his day in court, but recently the Trump administration has expedited removals of certain immigrants.
Colmenero has taken to social media to spread awareness about Rivero’s arrest. In one recent post, she includes a video sent from Rivero’s mother and family members living in Venezuela. They say he is not part of Tren de Aragua and call for his release.
The video ends with a group of children chanting “libertad.”
Freedom.
This story was originally published April 4, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Venezuelan man went to Sacramento to change his address. Now he’s in ICE custody."
