Deportation case dropped against California landscaper with 3 sons in the U.S. Marines

A deportation case against a 49-year-old man detained by immigration-enforcement agents in June while working a landscaping job in Santa Ana has been terminated by an immigration court judge, his attorney said on Thursday, Feb. 12.

The Jan. 28 decision paves the way for Narciso Barranco of Tustin, a father of three U.S. Marines, to seek legal permanent residency in the United States.

“For the time being, we’re now actively pursuing his parole in place with (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services),” Barranco’s attorney, Lisa Ramirez, said.

The judge’s order came as a great relief for Barranco.

“I feel happy,” he said in a phone interview in Spanish. “Thank God I don’t have that weight on top of me.”

Barranco said he is still staying mostly at home and not taking any chances going out until his legal paperwork has been finalized.

In the order ending the deportation case, Judge Kristin S. Piepmeier said that Barranco had provided evidence that he was the father of three U.S.-born sons in the military, making him eligible to seek lawful status.

Barranco was clearing weeds outside an IHOP restaurant in Santa Ana on June 21 when immigration agents approached him from behind, pinned him to the ground and handcuffed him. Video posted to social media shows he was hit multiple times in the head and taken with force.

Border Patrol officials later accused Barranco of swinging his weed whacker at agents and refusing to comply with authorities, but they did not provide evidence of that.

Barranco was held in an ICE detention facility in Adelanto for nearly a month before he was released on $3,000 bond on July 15 and fitted with an ankle monitor. More than a week later, during a news conference, he said that for many in the facility, “Hope is still alive.”

Barranco, a Mexican national, has been in the United States for three decades. He had been trying to apply for parole in place, which allows undocumented family members of active-duty military members to stay in the U.S. for at least a year, a time frame that can be extended, his son, U.S. Marine veteran Alejandro Barranco, has said.

One of Narciso Barranco’s three Marine sons has left the service, while the other two were based at Camp Pendleton as of July.

Alejandro Barranco said last summer that his father did not attack anyone, had no criminal record and is kind and hardworking. The use of force was unnecessary, he said, and differed greatly from his military training. Alejandro aided the U.S. military’s evacuation of personnel and Afghan allies from Afghanistan in 2021.

Alejandro left the Marine Corps in 2023. His two brothers are currently active-duty Marines.

“The aggressive nature of the apprehension, it was traumatic,” Ramirez said Thursday. “Mr. Barranco has had zero criminal history. They came after him because he was a brown gardener in the streets of Santa Ana.”

In defending the agents’ aggressive arrest, federal authorities have said they had felt threatened by Barranco, and they accused him of raising his weed trimmer at them. They did not comment on Wednesday, Feb. 12, to the Southern California News Group on the judge’s ruling.

But Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of public affairs with the Department of Homeland Security, told The Associated Press in a statement that the government would appeal the judge’s decision.

“The agents took appropriate action and followed their training to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve the situation in a manner that prioritizes the safety of the public and our officers,” McLaughlin said in Thursday’s statement.

Barranco’s attorney, Lisa Ramirez, said the next step is petitioning for the parole in place. Once that is approved, he can apply for a work authorization.

“I’m very proud of what we’ve been able to achieve and accomplish for Mr. Barranco, and yet we’re not done,” Ramirez said. “For me, it’s not time to celebrate.

“It’s really a time to just continue moving forward until we’re able to secure his legal status,” she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.