The husband of a Peruvian immigrant living in a Colorado church to avoid deportation has been arrested by ICE agents. Eliseo Jurado-Fernandez, 30, was detained by immigration agents during a trip to the grocery store, according to his wife, Ingrid Encalada Latorrey.

He was not living with his wife at the church and she called the arrest “an attack on me,” speaking through an interpreter at Boulder Unitarian Universalist Church, where she has been living for less than a month.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Jurado-Fernandez illegally entered the United States in 2004, was convicted of driving while ability impaired in 2007 and has three other misdemeanor convictions.

In a statement, immigration and customs field office director Jeffrey Lynch said Jurado-Fernandez came to the agency’s attention during an investigation into his wife but that his arrest was not connected to her taking sanctuary.

“Contrary to misguided speculation, ICE did not target Jurado-Fernandez in retaliation for Encalada Latorre taking sanctuary from deportation in a Colorado church,” he said.

Encalada Latorre had planned to return to her hometown of Cusco, Peru with her children, who are U.S. citizens, in October after failing to win a pardon from Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, for a conviction for possessing falsified or stolen identification papers. But she changed her mind and took refuge in a church for a second time. She had previously spent six months in a Quaker meeting house in Denver before reuniting with her family after immigration officials said they would not seek her arrest while she appealed her conviction.

Jurado-Fernandez was born in Mexico and came to the U.S. as a teenager to join his parents, according to the American Friends Service Committee Colorado, which works with churches to house immigrants facing deportation.

His father is a U.S. citizen and his mother is a permanent resident, the group said.

Ghe Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition condemned the arrest Friday:

Eliseo was detained even though nothing about his life or his immigration status had changed in any way. Clearly Eliseo was being stalked: they knew his truck, his address, then used this information to follow and detain him. ICE’s decision to target Eliseo is part of a pattern of attacking sanctuary. In August, when Araceli Velazquez entered Sanctuary in Denver, ICE went to her husband’s work to harass and question him. In April, ICE detained Arturo Hernandez Garcia, the first person in Colorado to enter and leave sanctuary, despite a written commitment not to. This past year ICE also suddenly deported AZ Sanctuary Leaders Marco Tulio and Ismael Delgado. These escalating attempts to silence Sanctuary leaders and intimidate their families are cruel and unjust, but won’t stop them or us. We won’t stand for these attacks on our communities.

“Eliseo, Ingrid and their two US citizen children are bearing the brunt of a hateful, extremist and retaliatory act of cowardice,” CIRC executive director Nicole Melaku said in a statement. “CIRC members and partners will continue to resist ICE attempts to destroy our communities. When they seek to cause terror and fear by apprehending Eliseo, the American public gets to witness the callousness and disregard ICE has for the lives of US citizen children and immigrant families. CIRC members stand firmly with Ingrid, Eliseo, and the Metro Denver Sanctuary Coalition, AFSC, and our entire network of national partners to halt the targeting and merciless attacks on leaders in our community.”

Friday the Immigration Justice Campaign – a partnership of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Immigration Council – joined with and the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network in Westminster to increase pro bono representation for individuals in immigration detention in Colorado.