A native of Mexico who has been living and working for nearly two decades near Bay St. Louis on the Mississippi Coast was arrested by federal immigration authorities after a car accident last week, his family said.Heriberto Reyes-Ochoas, who goes by Eddie, has been in the process of obtaining legal status for several years and has no criminal record, according to his family. He works in construction and lives in Kiln, Mississippi, with his wife. They are expecting their first child.Reyes-Ochoas, 34, accidentally rear-ended a vehicle Friday and was detained by a state trooper on two misdemeanor traffic violations of failure to yield and not having a drivers license, a spokesperson for the Mississippi Highway Patrol said. Reyes-Ochoas’ family said he was brought to the Hancock County jail and later transferred to the Adams County Correctional Center, an ICE facility in Natchez, Mississippi. Catherine Cool, his wife, said Reyes-Ochoas entered the United States when he was 14 and is “not trying to hide the fact that he came in illegally.”But “we have essentially followed the rules as in what is required of us to do from the government,” she said. “We’ve been trying to do the right thing.” The couple has been married for 12 years.Reyes-Ochoas’ detention comes as the Trump Administration cracks down on illegal immigration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents increasingly arrest people with no criminal record. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email on Thursday that Reyes-Ochoa “will remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of his removal proceedings.” Reyes-Ochoas was awaiting an interview as part of the process of obtaining a green card when he was arrested, according to his family. “To be clear: a pending application does NOT confer legal status in the United States,” the DHS spokesperson said.Reyes-Ochoas stayed for several days at the Hancock County jail, which is among dozens of local jails around the country working with the federal government to hold immigrants before they are transferred to longer-term ICE detention facilities. A Facebook post shared by Savannah Corbitt, Reyes-Ochoas’ sister-in-law, by Thursday had attracted hundreds of shares and comments urging elected officials to intervene. Cool said she spoke briefly with Reyes-Ochoas by phone on Thursday. “He said that he was fine. He said it wasn’t as bad as he thought it was going to be,” she said. “But we only got like three minutes.”