Pennsylvania judge calls U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on groom who was adopted by Irish American family as a baby.
Judge Elizabeth Beckley was due to perform the wedding for Alexander Parker and Krisha Schmick, high school sweethearts, in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, where she is the Cumberland County District judge.
Instead she called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and had the groom arrested. The case, which occurred in 2017, has only recently come to light.
Parker, adopted from Guatemala by an Irish American family when he was just eight months old, had forgotten to bring his paperwork to show for identification purposes. He was in the process of renewing his green card.
Read more: Irish dad jailed on family trip to US for visa overstay 22 years ago
His wife to-be rushed home to get his legal documents.
By the time she returned Alexander was under arrest after the judge called ICE.
A judge called ICE to arrest this man on his wedding day — now he and his wife are suing her pic.twitter.com/o0IReHn6FO
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 24, 2018
He was not the first groom targeted. ProPublica news service said a Tajikistan couple who wanted to get married faced an even worse fate. The groom and best man were arrested and led away after the judge called ICE. Now they have hired a lawyer.
"Philadelphia ICE known to be especially aggressive, rushed to city hall to arrest Parker
ProPublica reports “"But in this case, as rarely happened last year, ICE backed off. Amazingly, the judge offered to proceed with the nuptials. Having already paid the $45 fee, Parker and Schmick uncomfortably allowed the judge to marry them and celebrated afterward at a LongHorn Steakhouse."
The Parkers have since moved from Pennsylvania to Kissimmee, Fl. Parker said he felt safer there "from people like the judge that would try to do anything to have me deported."
Hs wife is still shaken by the incident. “At the end of the day, I was happy we were married, but it never should have happened the way it did," Krishna said. "We were trying literally just to get married and they brought in the ICE agents," she added.
The judge has refused to comment to several news outlets.
Read more: Irish immigrants among 225 arrested by ICE in New York
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