Erik Payán Ibarra woke up in good spirits on Monday, Feb. 24.
Before leaving for work at his tire shop in Colony Ridge, a sprawling development in Liberty County, he laid out $25 in cash for his wife next to the bed.
The couple’s two-year-old granddaughter had a doctor’s appointment that day, and Payán wanted to make sure his wife had money to cover possible expenses.
But soon after her husband left, Alejandrina Morales Marrufo said she saw news reports that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were conducting an operation inside Colony Ridge, the majority-Latino housing development where Payán works. Morales remembered watching in horror as social media videos circulated online of families being taken by masked immigration agents.
“I called him and said, ‘Mijo, they’re saying on the news that there will be immigration raids’,” Morales said in Spanish during an interview with the Houston Landing.
Payán reassured his wife he was being careful, but insisted he would finish helping a client. Fifteen minutes later, he called her back:
“Mija,” he said. “It’s over, ICE is here.”
In short order, Payán was whisked to ICE detention. The family’s sole breadwinner has not been charged criminally, but cannot work. Meanwhile, his daughter is hospitalized following an amputation, and his granddaughter battles a heart condition.
Payán was one of 118 people arrested in Colony Ridge during a joint ICE and Texas Department of Public Safety operation on Monday, the federal agency confirmed. Gov. Greg Abbott posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that state and federal law enforcement agents were “targeting criminals” and residents inside the development who are undocumented. The governor said that he and President Donald Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan had been planning the raid in Colony Ridge — which has long been an intense interest of Texas Republicans and anti-immigration activists — for months.
The federal agency wrote in a post on X that those arrested in Colony Ridge were guilty of an array of serious criminal offenses. However, an ICE spokesperson said on Wednesday he was not authorized to share any details about how many of the 118 people arrested were actually charged with a crime or had a significant criminal history.
As of Friday, Payán has not been charged with a specific crime, according to state and federal public records. A receptionist at the Montgomery County Processing Center confirmed the 51-year-old is being held in an ICE detention center in Conroe, Texas.
An ICE spokesperson explained Payán was arrested for immigration violations during a worksite enforcement investigation audit at his business.
“No further comment can be provided at this time due to an ongoing investigation into Mr. Payan and the Payan Tire Shop for suspected violations of federal law,” the spokesperson wrote.
“It’s a lie that my husband was a criminal,” Morales said.
No criminal background
Payán and Morales, originally from México, have been married for 32 years. His wife described Payán as a hard worker and provider for their family of six. The couple has owned land in the Camino Real subdivision Colony Ridge since 2019 and opened the Payan Tire Shop in 2020, according to Liberty County records.
Morales adamantly denied that her husband has a criminal record. Houston Landing found that Payán was charged in 2004 with aggravated assault and driving under the influence in 2004, which were dismissed in 2020 by a Kansas prosecutor, according to local court records.
Payán’s wife explained that her husband came to the U.S. on a visa to work in Kansas. In May 2004, Payán’s co-workers drunkenly crashed his car while Payán was sleeping in the passenger seat.
Payán Ibarra woke up in the hospital from a coma several days later with no memory of what happened and had nothing to do with the incident, Morales said.
“The charges were dismissed,” she said.
So far, the federal agency has only identified two of the 118 arrested in Colony Ridge as individuals charged with and/or previously convicted of state and federal crimes.
‘Put him in,’ ICE agent says
When her husband told her that ICE agents had appeared at their family business, Morales said she felt like her heart leapt from her body.
“I turned on the cameras [of the tire shop] from my phone to see how he was. They asked for his business papers and he showed them and everything. And I told him ‘I told you to close the business,’” she said in an interview with the Landing on Wednesday.
Then, Morales watched as they handcuffed, detained and then, suddenly, released her husband.
“Then,” she said, “I saw the agent take the phone.”
The client Payán was serving later told Morales he heard the federal agent tell his partner: “Put him in”.
“And they handcuffed him again and took him away,” Morales said.
His wife described Payán as the family’s joker — not a villain. She said she was so infuriated by the anti-immigrant rhetoric swirling about her husband and their Colony Ridge neighbors that she took to social media, and later in interviews with Univision, and KHOU to forcefully deny those accusations.
“Twenty-something years in this country and all he did was work. Everyone who was arrested yesterday were construction workers, people who work honorably,” she said through tears on a video posted to Facebook in Spanish. “So please, share. Share my videos so this arrives to the ears of the governor.”
Upcoming immigration court hearing
Morales said she located her husband in the Montgomery County ICE detention center, but has only spoken with him on the phone a couple of times and for a few minutes each. She says her husband has been worried about the family and asked how they are coping.
The couple have three daughters and care for their two-year-old granddaughter as well. Though Payán worked from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. changing tires, oil and brakes for his clients’ cars, he always found time for small family outings to Walmart at night, or before they owned the business, to see horse races, said Morales.
She hopes her husband can be released soon to see their girls, one of whom is hospitalized, and the other who is suffering from congenital heart malformation.
Morales, who fell in love with her husband in the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico, said that the family has faced many difficulties, and that Payán has always used humor and his tireless work ethic to get through tough times.
But Morales said she has always been the emotional backbone of the family. Now, she says she’s fighting to bring him home to his family, and prove that people like her family are worth fighting for.
“I insist that the governor gives himself the opportunity to know us, to know we’re not the criminals he’s labeled us as,” she said. “There’s no cartel, there’s no narcos, as he says. Here there’s nothing but hardworking people.”
Payán is scheduled to appear in immigration court at 8 a.m. on Monday, March 20 in Conroe, according to federal records.
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