Not long after, as they sat with a Spanish-speaking friend, Pedro asked “Does she know how to kiss?” which the friend translated for Jessica, after which Jessica gave Pedro “a little peck” — and they’ve been inseparable ever since, Jessica said after an Indivisible Blair County protest Saturday in Altoona against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

Except that on July 27, when the couple made their annual visit to the immigration office in Pittsburgh to renew Pedro’s permission to stay in the U.S., they’ve been apart, as Pedro was taken from that office to be deported to his native Mexico — discarded by a nation where he’d built a life that includes two children with Jessica, whom he married in 2010.

Friends had warned the couple before the trip to Pittsburgh that immigration authorities were taking people, but Jessica said there was nothing to worry about — they’d been going routinely and there was never a problem, she said.

And when they were in the waiting area at the immigration office, nothing seemed amiss, even when two officers asked Pedro to step into another room to talk, she said.

This photo shows the family of Jessica and Pedro Espitia. Pedro Espitia was deported in July during an annual visit to the immigration office in Pittsburgh. Courtesy photo

Jessica learned what was afoot only after the officers returned without Pedro and told her and their son Alex, then 17, “We’re taking your husband; you can get out of our office,” she said.

Pedro was sent to a holding center in West Virginia, then to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center near Philipsburg, Jessica said.

Pedro’s immigration lawyer from State College initiated an appeal, but Pedro was on a plane to Mexico the next day, before the appeal could be heard, Jessica said.

Pedro is living in the Guadalajara area, where his mother lives — the rest of his family is in the U.S. — except that Pedro is in a facility for treatment of severe depression, where he’s getting counseling and medications, Jessica said, based on conversations with Pedro’s mother.

Jessica has been struggling with depression herself, she said.

Jessica Espitia and her son, Alex, took part in Saturday’s protest against ICE in downtown Altoona. Alex was present when immigration officers told the family that his father, Pedro Espitia, was being deported to Mexico after more than two decades in the United States. Mirror photo by William Kibler

Jessica has serious heart and kidney issues, and is on oxygen at home, and she has an autistic son and an infant grandson the couple had been planning to adopt, all of which prohibits her from going to Mexico to see him, she said.

‘Came across the desert’

Pedro, 51, came to the U.S. at age 16.

“He did it wrong,” she said. “He came across the desert.”

He got married, and while married started the process of becoming a U.S. citizen, she said.

But that marriage ended in divorce, and the extensive citizenship paperwork was redone to include her, Jessica said.

They have kept up on that paperwork through the years, she said.

The vetting included a session in which they were taken into separate rooms and questioned, to ensure “We were really together and there were no issues,” she said.

Immigration authorities took Pedro in July based on the couple’s having missed one of their annual appointments in 2009, Jessica learned.

It happened because Jessica was in the hospital with a heart attack, and Pedro was with her, as a loving husband, she said.

It should not have caused a problem, but their lawyer at the time neglected to inform immigration authorities about the reason for the missed appointment, she said, adding she didn’t learn about that lawyerly miscue until many years later.

Still it seemed nothing to be concerned about, because she and Pedro had gone to all the subsequent annual check-ins without incident, she said.

Six years, $3,000 to come back

Since the deportation, she has learned that the process of getting him back could cost $3,000 and take more than six years, she said.

She has begun trying to raise money for the effort, she said.

Prior to the deportation, she and Pedro lost a mobile home they were living in, after that, they leased an apartment.

Since the deportation and the loss of Pedro’s income as a drywall man, she’s been evicted from that apartment, and has lost one of their cars, she said.

Pedro’s former employer is renting to what’s left of her family now at a very low rate, she said.

It was a house in which Pedro did much of the drywall, which is a comfort to her, she said.

He was a hard worker and was proud of the results, she said.

He would point to the walls of one of the local supermarkets and tell other customers, “I did that,” she said.

She FaceTimes with him every Sunday and sees that he has aged dramatically in Mexico, she said.

At the meeting in Pittsburgh, officers would not allow Jessica and Alex to say goodbye to Pedro or allow Jessica to give him his wallet or other belongings she had with her, she said.

While they were still in the waiting room, Alex got into a confrontation with an immigration officer, after he heard a couple of them laughing in the room where Pedro had been taken and after one emerged with a smirk, Alex said.

“We got in each other’s faces,” Alex said, and the officer hauled him outside.

During their time together, Pedro never got into any legal trouble, Jessica said.

During his previous marriage, he may have gotten a couple speeding tickets, she said.

A check on the state’s judicial website for criminal cases returned no results.

Pedro and Jessica met on March 28, 2002, 10 days before her 21st birthday, she said.

His eyes and his smile are what attracted her, she said.

“That is what grabs my heart,” she said. “All he has to do is look at me.”

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.