The Rochester Rapid Response Network and the Worker’s Center of CNY helped organize a vigil for Elias Tepexpa at the Detention Center in Batavia on Saturday afternoon.
On Wednesday morning, September 26, 2018, Elias’ wife Stefanie was at a doctors appointment when she received a message that ICE agents had stormed their residence as Elias was picking up the mail in front of their house after work.
She says ICE agents asked him his name. He did not answer because he did not know what was going on. The agents then asked each other if the man in the picture looked like him, they laughed and then said you are under arrest and put Elias in the back of a car.
Elias was then taken to the Batavia Federal Detention Facility and is expected to be deported to Mexico within the week.
Elias Tepexpa has been in the U.S for 10 years, together with his wife, Stefanie, for 7 years and married for 5 years. He is co-raising Stefanie’s 14 year-old daughter as well as her 6 year-old granddaughter and supporting Stefanie’s mother who is battling lung cancer. He has been a hard worker on a dairy farm in Perry, NY for 10 years. He has paid his taxes, supported his family and is a beloved member of the community.
His separation from his family will now cause a crisis for his wife and family.
Elias’ family lives at the farm where he works in employer-provided housing. With his detention and imminent deportation, they will most likely become homeless or have to now apply for government assistance. Without his economic support for the family, his wife Stefanie will not be able to afford the payments on their car and could potentially lose her own job due to lack of transportation.
“He stepped up and became a dad to them all, our granddaughter is lost without him, we have our perfect life here and now it’s gone,” says Stefani.
“He is so loved, he’s like a godsend, he’s so scared, he doesn’t want to leave us. The house we live in is through the farm, we’re going to lose everything and I can’t live without him”. –
“ Our hearts are broken. He has been the love of my mother’s life. A father to my sister and my niece whom my mother has custody of. He is a friend and father figure to myself and an amazing papa to my daughter. He is a joy and a light in all our lives. To know him is to love him. He is a hard worker and one of the most selfless and kind people I have ever known, we cannot lose him,” says his stepdaughter
Stefani says she has contacted an attorney who will meeting with Elias on Monday.
She also has contacted Congressman Chris Collins Office, who called her right back.
She says his office is looking into what happened and will be contacting her on Monday.
Update:
According to District Attorney Donald O’Geen in Wyoming County, Stefani Flint Tepexpa was sentenced to 1 year of interim probation after pleading guilty to welfare fraud for lying on her benefits paperwork by not disclosing that Elias was in the residence and she did not report his income as they have been married since 2013.
This incident may have alerted ICE and could explain why he was taken into custody last week.
Flint Tepexpa owes Wyoming County Social Service $20,997.84 in restitution. If restitution is not paid during the 1 year of interim probation she does not get a reduction in the charge and most likely will be sentenced on the original charges.
“Elias was not implicated or charged, but just by him living in the house and her failing to disclose him is why she was charged. They are apparently married and she failed to disclose that and it is apparently a misnomer that you become legal once you are married to a citizen so he does not have legal status at this time,” says O’Geen.
Previously——-July 22, 2017————-
A Perry woman is facing welfare charges after she allegedly filed false documents with the Department of Social Services.
Stefanie Flint, 46, is charged with welfare fraud 4th and offering a false instrument to file 1st , both felonies, after an investigation by the Wyoming County Sheriff’s Office and the Department of Social Services.
It is alleged that Flint failed to report that she had been married. Flint has been married since 2013. By failing to report her marriage, she collected $20,997.84 in county taxpayer benefits that she was not entitled to.
Flint will answer the charges in the Town of Warsaw Court on August 28, 2017.
Let him go to work in Mexico and send money to his wife in New York. How is that for a twist. If he was here illegally, then he got what he deserved. It is also good to hear that she is getting what she deserves for defrauding the Welfare system. No sympathy here