In September, a former day laborer was detained by Border Patrol agents outside the Pomona Day Labor Center and self-deported to Mexico just days later. In the process, he left everything behind — including his 9-year-old pit bull, Chapo.
Now, the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center, who runs the day labor center, is raising money to reunite the two.
Fernando Salazar migrated to the United States 22 years ago and eventually settled in Pomona. The 60-year-old worked as a day laborer, living largely alone after his wife and children chose not to immigrate. That changed nine years ago when neighbors found a stray puppy and gave him to Salazar.
Salazar said he raised Chapo like his child. “The dog motivated me to keep going,” he said in Spanish from his hometown in Morelos, a rural state south of Mexico City. “When I’m eating tacos, he wants to eat tacos too.”
Decades of isolation from his family led to depression, Salazar said, but caring for Chapo — the walks, the baths, the routine of it all — helped him feel grounded.
That routine abruptly ended on Sept. 25. Salazar said he was walking Chapo near the day labor center when he noticed Border Patrol agents in the parking lot. The officers were targeting two other workers, according to staff at the site, not Salazar. Yet, he was still detained.
Video recorded at the scene shows a staff member pleading with agents while Salazar asks repeatedly to leave with his dog. Moments later, an agent requested Salazar’s identification. Salazar, who was undocumented, said he was detained and does not remember where he was taken first. Staff at the center said he was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles.
Salazar eventually agreed to voluntary deportation. Three days later, he was released at the Tijuana border. He said he was advised not to sign the papers but felt he had no choice. He was still recovering from abdominal surgery he had in February.
“I’m sick,” he said. “How could I stay healthy there?”
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for more information about Salazar’s case.
Back in Pomona, Ana Martinez — PEOC’s day labor center coordinator — had been caring for Chapo. She said staff members and day laborers would take turns feeding and walking him. He’s now under the care of one of Martinez’s friends in Ventura. They launched a GoFundMe campaign in October to cover transportation costs to send Chapo to Mexico.
“I wish I could do more,” Martinez said. “If I can help reunite them together, to me that means I’m doing something right.”
Martinez said Border Patrol has visited the center twice since September, leaving workers afraid to show up for jobs and the PEOC frustrated. But she said the effort to bring Chapo home has given the center hope.
As for Salazar, he says he can’t wait to see Chapo again.
“My poor boy must be suffering, because in reality, no one will give him the life I do,” he said.
Martinez says she plans to take Chapo to Salazar before Christmas.
“[Salazar] would always ask me, ‘If something happens to me, what’s going to happen to Chapo?’ And I always told him not to worry. I promised him that if he ever returned to Mexico, I’d do whatever it took to make sure Chapo went with him. The day he was taken, I told him again not to worry and that I would do everything in my power to reunite them.”
With their fundraising goal nearly met, Martinez may soon fulfill that promise.
