Pregnant US woman's husband arrested by immigration officials on way to hospital

The shocking incident took place on Wednesday when the couple was on the way to a hospital in California.

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NEW YORK: In a shocking incident, a pregnant American woman's husband was arrested by the immigration officials while the couple was on the way to a hospital in California.

The lady, Maria del Carmen Venegas, claimed that she was forced to drive herself to the hospital as the officials took her husband away for questioning, according to Independent.co.uk.

The shocking incident took place on Wednesday when Maria and her husband Joel Arrona Lara were driving to the delivery room in San Bernardino, California, a city east of Los Angeles. 

The couple was intercepted by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at a petrol station the two had stopped to get their vehicle refuelled.

The footage of the CCTV camera installed at the petrol station showed two officials vehicles and the ICE agents questioning the couple. 

When asked to prove their identity, the woman provided the documents to the ICE officials, but her husband could not do so as he had left his papers at home in their rush to the hospital.

Not pleased with the man's reply, the ICE agents handcuffed the woman's husband and took him away for questioning, leaving her in tears at the gas station.

The woman composed herself and drove herself to the hospital for a scheduled cesarean section for the birth of her fifth child.

"I felt terrible. We need him now more than ever," she was quoted as saying over the telephone.

Venegas and her husband came to the US 12 years ago from the city of Leon in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. They do not have legal authorization to live in the US, and all five of their children are US citizens, she said.