Ramon Lopez talks to a sick mother of two who cannot work or take care of her children. Her husband is in ICE detention.
By Ramon Lopez
Original Air Date: September 17, 2025
Host: The ongoing immigration crackdown has thrown one Bradenton family into extreme distress. Ramon Lopez talked to a mother of two who is homebound, facing a serious health challenge. Her husband is in ICE detention, while she is in desperate need of a transplant, unable to work or care for her children.
Ramon Lopez: A gravely-ill immigrant mother with two young children struggles as her husband is detained for being an undocumented immigrant. This story begins with a simple traffic stop.
It’s a scene that is playing out every day across the United States: A Latino-looking driver is pulled over by a law enforcement officer for a minor traffic violation.
This happened in May to Maria Martinez in North Port. The recent college grad was heading home from work and was stopped for an illegal U-turn. She didn’t have a driver’s license since she was undocumented. She ended up in ICE detention, and eventually self-deported to Mexico.
In early June, a University of Utah student was stopped in Colorado for driving too close to a semi-truck. Carolina Dias-Goncalves is undocumented because her visa expired over a decade ago. She was held for over two weeks.
And on the morning of May 27, Eddy Macario, a housepainter, was pulled over in Port Charlotte by a Charlotte County deputy sheriff while he was on the way to work. The reason? Either failing to stop before the line at a stop sign, or not signaling a left turn there. The specific infraction kept changing.
Also without a driver’s license, he was arrested for the traffic violation, then turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE agents. More than 200 police departments in Florida are partnering with ICE, as President Trump makes good on his promise to deport millions without legal documentation.
Eddy Macario will be marking his 36th birthday later in September, at ICE’s Broward Transitional Center, located in Pompano Beach, Florida, away from his family in Bradenton.
Macario was born in Guatemala. He crossed the U.S.-Mexico border on foot into Arizona. He arrived in Bradenton in 2006. His wife is 42-year-old Benita Cantero who arrived in Bradenton in 2000 from Mexico. She is also undocumented. They met in church in 2009 and married in 2012. They have two children: an 11-year old boy and a six-year old girl. Both were born in Bradenton.
This past April, the family started gathering documents to support a T-Visa, which provides a work permit. On July 18, their immigration attorney submitted the paperwork for the T-Visa. After three years with a clean record, the permit holder can then apply for a green card.
Benita Cantero spoke to WSLR News. She believes Eddy was ‘targeted’ because he looked Hispanic.
Benita Cantero: I believe my husband, they pulled him over, you know police, because his face is Latino.
RL: Unlike many ICE detainees who get moved about, Eddy remains in Pompano Beach. Benita and the children can’t visit Eddy there because she is undocumented. And Benita fears she might also be detained by ICE.
BC: If, in case, I’m going over there, they’re gonna take me too, because I don’t have any Social Security. So my son, my daughter, is gonna be alone.
RL: Eddy calls them often on a prison phone, which is costly. In 2017, there were allegations of lack of sufficient medical care for undocumented detainees there. The facility was the subject of a 2019 film, The Infiltrators, which was acclaimed at the Sundance Film Festival. 
The Infiltrators is based on the incredible true story of undocumented immigrants who purposefully got themselves arrested by federal authorities in order to infiltrate the Broward Transitional Center in Florida and organize the prisoners within its walls.
Eddy tells Benita he is being treated well there. But she wonders.
BC: Are we saying, I’m good? I’m good? I don’t know exactly. I don’t know. Probably he wants to let me know exactly, because hero, he don’t want to be like probably I’m going to worry.
RL: Benita says the kids miss their dad.
BC: My son sometimes say, I don’t want to cry when I call my dad, because, you know, I don’t want to miss out. Because when two times he called me, he say, I have to say, baby, why? Because I don’t know what happened with me? If they’re gonna took me over then, and he tried to be strong, but he, my son, he came here when he cried, his dad, and say, ‘I never hear my dad cry. This is the first time’. So my son said, ‘No, I have to be stronger for him’.
RL: Benita says Eddy will only self-deport to Guatemala as a last resort.
BC: My husband is waiting until the last call with ICE, and only if there is no other choice, he will then agree to leave voluntarily. We want our family united.
RL: Benita says the family would follow.
BC: Every day, I think about that. Just want to wait when what’s gonna go be to the last court, and depends what happened if they going to send over there. I think so, I am going with him, because I don’t want my son, my daughter to live separate.
RL: Benita still hopes the work visa they applied for in July will come through so they can stay in the United States.
To literally ‘add insult to injury’ Benita two years ago was diagnosed with auto-immune cirrhosis, and desperately needs a liver transplant. As a result, she had to stop cleaning houses and the illness has taken a toll on her. No income..no medical insurance….and no husband…has made life difficult for her and the children.
BC: I don’t have insurance. I have to pay for expensive doctor’s visits and medication that I can afford. I am a sick mother. I need a new liver. I cannot care for my children. We’re good people who work. We need my husband at home to take care of our family until I get a new liver and I can do more.
RL: A Go Fund Me campaign has been started to help the family.
This has been Ramon Lopez for WSLR News.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm.
