Haga clic aquí para ver la versión en español de este artículo de noticias. Martin Soto Photo Credit: GoFundMe photo Gabriela and Marin Soto Photo Credit: Gabriela Soto Gabriela and Marin Soto Photo Credit: Gabriela Soto 02/05/2026 5:44 p.m. Martin Soto left his Kearny home Monday night to buy diapers — a quick errand just a few blocks away that should have taken minutes. He never made it back.Soto, a 30-year-old native of Peru and father of two, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement while walking home from the store, according to his wife, Gabriela Soto, 27.“He should’ve been back by 6:30,” Gabriela said. “It doesn’t take that long — it’s only 3-4 blocks from the house.” As the minutes turned into hours, Gabriela said she repeatedly called her husband’s phone. There was no answer.“In my mind I’m like, OK, you’re just upset or you’re not talking, something’s going on,” she said. “So I gave him his space.”But hours later, the phone rang.“At 11:15, 11:20, I got a phone call,” Gabriela said. “And I’m like, ‘Who is this?’ And he says it’s him.” Martin told her he was being held at Delaney Hall in Newark.“He’s like, ‘I’m in Delaney Hall right here,’” she said. “I’m like, ‘Why?’ He’s like, ‘They stopped me as I was coming out of the store.’”Gabriela said her husband struggled to understand what officers were saying during the encounter. He told his wife he asked them to speak slower but they only spoke faster and appeared to become frustrated with him, according to his wife. Then, they arrested him.According to NJ Advance Media, Martin entered the U.S. illegally in late 2023 and was released by immigration authorities in early 2024. Gabriela said ICE officials told her that her husband was detained because of his immigration status. Gabriela, a US citizen, said she and Martin have been married for two years. He does not have a work visa or a green card, she said. “They’re like, ‘He’s here illegally, so that’s what happened,’” she said. “I said he wasn’t doing anything illegally. You don’t have the rights. They said, ‘No, we do.’”The ICE website says: "ICE does not need judicial warrants to make arrests. Like all other law enforcement officers, ICE officers and agents can initiate consensual encounters and speak with people, briefly detain aliens when they have reasonable suspicion that the aliens are illegally present in the United States, and arrest people they believe are illegal aliens. ICE officers and agents can also detain and search people crossing the border. "All aliens who violate U.S. immigration law are subject to arrest and detention, regardless of their criminal histories. Those with final orders of removal are removed from the United States."Gabriela said Martin had been waiting nearly two years for a court date related to his immigration case. When he finally received one this year, she said, it was scheduled for 2028. The couple planned to use this year to hire an immigration lawyer and begin the process in earnest, Gabriela said, adding that she intended to do so after filing her taxes. Those plans unraveled in a matter of hours.After leaving Delaney Hall, Gabriela said she went home, tried to calm herself, put her children to sleep and spent the rest of the night awake, worrying about what would come next.Martin, who has lived in the U.S. for two years, has no criminal record and no prior arrests, court records show. He works full-time helping in the kitchen at a restaurant and often takes overtime shifts. “He’s the one who brings in the majority of the money,” she said. “He’s the one that pays the rent, the car payments, insurance — any heavy bills.”Gabriela said she works part-time, earning about $250 to $275 per week, while caring for their children.“It’s kind of hard, but I’m trying to manage it somehow,” she said. Gabriela launched a GoFundMe for her family that had raised more than $1,600 as of press time.“He came to this country with a purpose,” the fundraiser states. “He came here to raise his daughter. And be a father to his son. He came here to make a life with me and our children.”“He only has two weeks before his court hearing,” Gabriela wrote. “And I want to be able to have a lawyer defend him so that he can stay here.” At home, Gabriela said the emotional toll has been especially heavy on their daughter.“My husband used to read bedtime stories to her,” she said. “Now she’s asking where he is.”Gabriela said she has been telling her daughter that her father is at work: “But it’s really hard to lie to a little girl,” she said. Daily Voice has reached out to ICE for comment. Click here to follow Daily Voice and receive free news updates.