‘Really traumatized’: Idaho family worked to find patriarch after Wilder raid

Following a federal law enforcement raid at a horse racing track in Wilder on Sunday, Idaho families were in disarray as they tried to locate parents, children and siblings.

A 17-year-old girl from Jerome said her family struggled to find her father after law enforcement took him into custody, and it led to an odyssey that included his apparent transfer to a facility in Utah.

The teen – granted anonymity by the Idaho Statesman because she feared reprisals for her dad – said this week that her father and 14-year-old brother were two of the hundreds of people initially held during an FBI raid Sunday involving an alleged illegal gambling operation at La Catedral Arena, a horse racing track in Wilder.

ICE officers eventually arrested 105 “illegal aliens” as part of the operation, according to a statement made by Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson. Nikki Ramirez-Smith, a Nampa-based immigration lawyer, disputed that all those taken into custody by ICE were in the United States illegally, saying she has three clients among them who have legal residency.

She said two of those have been released.

The FBI said it charged five people as part of the horse betting investigation. None of the 100-plus people arrested as part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement involvement were charged with crimes connected to the gambling operation.

Brother, father detained in Wilder while Idaho family scrambles

The teen girl said she and other family members were at a restaurant in Twin Falls when they heard about the raid. They watched it through live social media videos, occasionally catching glimpses of their dad and brother, she said.

“It honestly hurt me so much to see my brother there with those zip-ties around his arms, and just looking at my dad there,” she told the Statesman in a phone interview. “(My dad’s) face was so sad, because I know he probably had a feeling that he was already going to be gone and separated from his family.”

The girl said her dad was taken to the Elmore County Jail in Mountain Home on Sunday, before law enforcement moved him to Utah on Monday. Her brother was left parentless at the racetrack; a family friend drove him to a gas station, where an aunt picked him up, the girl said.

“He’s really traumatized,” the teen said. “He can’t sleep at night, because he just remembers seeing my dad’s face, seeing my dad cry. He’s just really scared about this whole situation.”

The 17-year-old said her father called from custody late Sunday and told his wife that he was not feeling well.

“My dad has health issues,” the teen said. “He has diabetes, and he has been really fighting his life out there. He has heart problems. … He did end up telling one of the police officers, and they replied back to my dad that they didn’t care about his health issues, that they were not going to take him to the hospital.”

The teen’s sister drove to Mountain Home early Monday to deliver medication for their father, and the jail accepted the meds, she said. But the family later learned that their father had been moved to Utah already and never received the pills, according to the teen.

“It’s just been going back and forth, trying to know where he’s been,” the teen said. “The fact that they’ve been moving him from place to place was the hardest part, because we just needed him to stay in one spot in order for us to be able to actually get the lawyer to go there.”

The teen said her family then got a call from the man Monday, and he said he was at a detention facility outside of Salt Lake City.

“He told us that they were scaring people, that they were trying to force them to sign papers, because they wanted to bring my dad from there to Mexico,” the teen told the Statesman.

She said it “broke her” to hear her father crying over the phone.

Coming from Mexico to America

The teen said her grandparents brought her father to the United States when he was a teenager. He is the father of five children, ages 3 to 19, all of whom were born in Idaho.

“I’ve seen on news and on TikTok where they take other people’s parents away in front of the children, and it’s something that I wished to never happen to my parents,” the teen said. “When I first heard (about Wilder,) my heart dropped. I was like, there’s no way that this is coming true.”

The teen said her aunt was heading to Utah to try to find her dad, whom she described as “lost” on Monday night. Detention facility staff said he was no longer there and did not know where he had been moved, according to the teen, and she said her dad was not answering his cellphone.

“He doesn’t want to be separated from us,” the teen said. “We have a little sister. She’s only 3. She keeps asking for my dad. ‘Where is he?’ And all we’re able to tell her is that he’s just at work, because she clearly doesn’t understand anything.

“We really do need my dad. He’s always here for us.”

Anabel Romero, 35, of Meridian, told the Idaho Statesman on Tuesday that the teen’s father was released from custody with an ankle monitor. The Statesman was not able to reach the teen girl for confirmation or comment.