AMHERST, Mass. (AP) — A Guatemalan man has left the Massachusetts church he lived in for more than three years to avoid deportation after being granted a reprieve from federal immigration officials.
Lucio Perez stepped of the First Congregational Church in Amherst on Saturday. Rev. Margaret Sawyer, of the Pioneer Valley Workers Center, a local group that's been supporting Perez, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently stayed his deportation.
The organization said Perez was denied a deportation stay under President Donald Trump's administration and ordered to leave the country. It said he entered the country illegally in 1999 at the age of 17 and eventually settled in Springfield, Mass. with his wife and family in 2008.
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