Published June 17, 2026 at 4:57 PM EDT In emotional public testimony before the Butler County Commissioners Wednesday, a Butler woman described the financial and psychological toll of having her Mexican-born husband being held by federal immigration authorities.“This is day 51 without my husband in the house,” Amanda Smail-Carrizalez told the three county commissioners during a public comment portion of their regular meeting.Speaking with the couple’s 6-year-old daughter beside her, she said, “There was no warrant. There was no reason. My husband was on his way to work. He's the sole provider for us. I have been struggling.”Her husband, Ignacio Carrizalez, was taken into custody by immigration authorities in April, after he was pulled over by Evans City police, she said. He is being held in the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, a Clearfield County facility where immigration detainees from the region frequently are housed while awaiting processing and potential deportation.About a dozen people came to the meeting to show their support for Smail-Carrizalez and her family. When her remarks exceeded the several minutes allotted for one person’s public comments, those supporters ceded their time so she could continue speaking.Smail-Carrizalez is a native-born U.S. citizen, and said her husband was authorized to work in the U.S. as the family’s primary breadwinner. Under previous administrations, immigrants were often permitted to remain in the United States and receive certification to work as their cases — which could involve complexities like claims for political asylum — worked their way through the system. But the Trump administration has altered that policy, a reversal that has sparked protest on behalf of other immigrants in western Pennsylvania.Smail-Carrizalez said that since his detainment, she and her daughter have applied for public assistance. She said detainment has caused him to miss several residency hearings, and described her struggles to get mental health assistance in the wake of her husband’s arrest.“My 6-year-old daughter is also struggling with not understanding why her father never came home,” she said. “She's waking up every night with nightmares.” A request for comment from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that has led efforts to detain and remove immigrants, did not receive an immediate response Wednesday afternoon. Evans City police similarly did not respond immediately to a request for comment.County commissioners Leslie Osche, Kimberly Geyer, and Kevin Boozel did not address her comments following the meeting. But Smail-Carrizalez’s testimony amplified concerns county officials have been facing for months about immigration.The Butler County Sheriff’s office is one of several local law enforcement agencies that have a 287(g) agreement, which allows local officers to help enforce federal immigration laws. Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe signed the agreement with ICE last June, according to documents from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement.Smail-Carrizalez did not allege that the sheriff’s office had anything to do with her husband’s detention, but said her experience reflected broader concerns with immigration enforcement.“ I'm just trying to bring this to the attention to everybody before my family's forced to leave, to try to help other families in this community before it happens to them,” she said. “My family's been destroyed.”Osche has previously defended the Sheriff’s participation in the program; Boozel has questioned it. Last month, the Commissioners voted to buy additional insurance for Sheriff’s deputies working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to The Butler Eagle.But some Butler County residents have been attending the every-other-week Commissioners’ meetings for months to denounce Slupe’s participation in the 287(g) agreement. Many have done so as part of an informal group calling itself Butler Neighbors.Brittney Scaccia, a Butler Neighbors member who was in attendance Wednesday, said she came to show community support for Smail-Carrizale — and to show that there were concerns about ICE even in deep-red parts of the state.While most voters in the area are Republicans, she said, “There’s more people in Butler County that don’t want to see this than you would think.”