Funeral arrangements set for Brigid Kelly next week. People asked to wear green

A jailhouse wedding as deportation looms: `I am ready ... for whatever comes next.'

Mark Curnutte
Cincinnati Enquirer
Sandra Mendoza enters the Morrow County Jail to marry Yancarlos Mendez with her pastor, Alfredo Ortiz, and her immigration attorney, Charleston Wang, as her son, Ricky, waits in the lobby. Ricky was not allowed to witness the wedding or see his stepfather.

MT. GILEAD, Ohio – By her count, Sandra Mendoza had not seen her fiance for 66 days.

On Thursday afternoon in a rural Ohio jail, she got to hold his hand, wrap her arms around his shoulders, kiss his lips and become his wife.

"I didn't want to leave him," Mendoza said after the 33-minute ceremony.

She wore a white wedding dress that cost her $9 at a discount store and an ivory jacket. Holding a bouquet of pale pink roses, she stood near two vending machines and a metal detector in the lobby of the Morrow County Jail.

She inhaled deeply and finished her thought. "I am ready for everything … whatever comes next."

Sandra Mendoza opens the blinds in her Springdale home as she waits for Pastor Alfredo Ortiz to pick her and her son, Ricky, up to drive more than two hours to Morrow County Jail in Mount Gilead, Ohio for her wedding.

Her husband, Yancarlos Mendez, 27, will either be deported to his native Dominican Republic or allowed to return home to his wife and stepson in suburban Springdale.

Ricky Solis, 6, Mendoza's son, a U.S. citizen paralyzed from the waist down in an auto crash a year ago, was not allowed to see his stepfather. Wearing a dark suit, white shirt and a pair of new shoes, he sat in his wheelchair near a metal detector and two vending machines and ate a bag of potato chips. 

After Sandra Mendoza marries Yancarlos Mendez inside the Morrow County Jail, she comforts her son, Ricky, after she tells him that he will not be able to see his stepfather.

"I just wanted to see my dad," said Ricky, who tried not to cry. At least twice, though, he wiped tears from his cheeks. The child had not spoken with Mendez since he was led away in a Butler County courtroom Nov. 29.

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement rules, "only those essential for the marriage ceremony may attend." An Enquirer reporter and two photographers were not permitted to witness the wedding ceremony or interview Mendez.

Three people entered the secure area of the federal detention center in the county jail: the bride, their pastor and one of their attorneys, Charleston Wang, who collected signatures afterward on the marriage license.

"Yancarlos was emotional," said their pastor, Alfredo Ortiz, of Iglesia Jesucristo Rey de las Naciones in Lincoln Heights. "As Christians, we have hope that God will help."

The minister read in Spanish from the Letter to the Ephesians 5:25: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her."

Mendez was dressed in his prison uniform, light green pants, matching short-sleeve shirt and a white undershirt.

"He told me how much he loved me and said he didn't want me to cry," his wife said.

While attorney Wang drove the three hours to Mt. Gilead with two other immigrant advocates, another of the couple's attorneys, Nazly Mamedova, filed more paperwork with the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

Sandra Mendoza pushes Ricky's wheelchair to leave their Springdale home to drive to her wedding in Mount Gilead, Ohio.

"We are petitioning on behalf of the son, the mother and the stepfather," Wang said in the jail lobby. "The public interest is served by allowing the family to remain together to care for the disabled child."

ICE disagrees and is unmoved, and its Detroit office issued a statement to that effect late Wednesday after a three-judge panel with the Sixth Circuit granted the government's motion to lift the stay of his removal.

"ICE has carefully reviewed his case and determined he was ineligible for any agency relief, and as such will move forward with his repatriation to his home country," the enforcement agency stated.

A photo of Yancarlos Mendez hugging Ricky Solis is displayed in Ricky's room among all of his medical supplies.

Mendez entered the United States legally on the Visa Waiver Program from Spain — he has dual citizenship — but he overstayed the 90-day limit by more than two years, ICE officials said.

He has been in federal detention since late November, following a second citation for driving without a license in Butler County. He worked as an auto mechanic to support Mendoza and her son and was trained by staff at Cincinnati Children's Hospital to care medically for Ricky. Mendoza had to quit her job in a pizza parlor to stay with Ricky around the clock.

Mendez proposed a few days after Ricky and his mother were injured in the car crash.

Ricky Solis, 6, waits in his wheelchair to drive to his mother's wedding at Morrow County Jail in Mount Gilead, Ohio. His mom's fiancé, Yancarlos Mendez, has been detained by ICE for more than two months.

"He got down on one knee," she said. "We were so busy with Ricky, we just never got around to getting married."

Their attorneys had to get an authorized copy of Mendez's divorce certificate from Spain before securing the marriage license in Butler County. The long road to the wedding ended on a bitterly cold, gusty, snow-covered day in north-central Ohio.

Early Thursday morning, as she put on makeup and curled her long, dark hair in her apartment, Mendoza, 24, said her wedding day was not what she had dreamed of as a young girl.

Sandra Mendoza leaves the Morrow County Jail with three bouquets of assorted roses after she married Yancarlos Mendez. It was the first time she could hold his hand in more than two months. The family is waiting for the results of a petition their attorney filed to prevent the Mendez's deportation.

"I didn't want it like this," Mendoza, a Guatemalan national said in her apartment before riding with Ricky and her ministers to the jail an hour north of Columbus. 

"I wanted my dad to take me, to give my hand to my future husband. I wanted a big party."

She twice applied for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, otherwise known as DACA. In September, President Donald Trump set a March 5 deadline for lawmakers to come up with an agreement to save the program, created by President Barack Obama through executive action in June 2012.

Mendoza has a pending U Visa application as a victim of a violent crime who is cooperating with law enforcement. Ricky's father, to whom she was not married, physically and emotionally abused her, she said.

"My life is not what I thought it would be," she said after putting on false eyelashes and her wedding dress. "If I did something wrong in my past, I am trying to make it right now. Maybe in the future, I can help somebody."

Sandra Mendoza adds a hairpiece that Ricky's teacher lent her for wedding. Mendoza says it is her "something old, something borrowed."

Ricky's constant medical needs, even with a nurse in the apartment, are never far away and leave Mendoza with little time for reflection. But Mendoza said her husband loves Ricky like he is his own son, and she believes it is the family's love that ultimately will win out.

"If he stays, I am going to be happy," she said of her new husband. "If he leaves, it's going to hurt. But I know he's going to be home sooner or later."

After the wedding, there were group photos in the jail lobby. In them were Mendoza, Ricky, attorney Wang, minister Ortiz, associate church pastor Eduardo Ortiz and immigrant advocates Don Sherman and his wife, Melody Kawamoto.

A white female deputy, speaking in Spanish, congratulated Mendoza.

The group then left to eat lunch – a makeshift wedding reception – at a restaurant in downtown Mt. Gilead.

Ricky Solis, 6, lays in bed after his mom and nurse dressed him in a blazer and button down shirt for his mom's wedding. After an auto crash in February 2017, Ricky suffered severe injuries, including paraplegia and brain trauma. His mother's fiancé, Yancarlos Mendez, helped as a caretaker before he was detained by ICE in December 2017.