When federal Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents are seen in Pueblo, cellphones start ringing all over town like a resistance movement warning others to get out of sight and pass the word.

People are being arrested. The messages warn there is a sweep going on. Look for these trucks or that van.

Carol Rubio wishes she'd gotten that word on Feb. 28. The Colorado woman was dressing for work on that snowy morning while her husband, Benito, was holding their newborn son, Rogelio.

Carol, born in Salida, believes the new crackdown on undocumented immigrants killed her husband.

"Oh, yes," she nodded. "I'm certain he'd still be alive if he hadn't been picked up."

They'd lived in Pueblo nearly 20 years, had four children and were happy here as Benito, 49, made his living roofing houses, stuccoing walls and doing other jobs in the cold of winter. He knew many local contractors.

"My husband was a free spirit, a happy man," she said, sitting close to the small family shrine that includes Benito's ashes and a large photo of his smiling face.

Benito Rubio couldn't become a U.S. citizen. He'd been caught too many times by U.S. agents, first in California as a teenager. Then in Colorado.

But his life in America was always better than his life in Durango, Mexico, so he always came back, willing to play the cat-and-mouse game of life as an illegal immigrant.

He'd been deported in 2011 and the family tried living in Mexico for a year.

"It was terrible there, so I brought the kids back to Pueblo and Benito made his own way back," Carol said.

The couple met here and they were together for 19 years, until she had to unplug his life support in a Denver hospital on May 7, his wrists still bruised by the handcuffs of federal agents.

By then, not even ICE or the federal Bureau of Prisons wanted anything to do with what had happened to Benito Rubio. All federal charges had been dropped.

It was early morning and snowing on Feb. 28 when Benito's cellphone buzzed. He was holding his newborn son, so Carol answered.

"It was a man's voice asking for my husband," she recalled. "He wanted an estimate on a stucco job."

Benito was surprised but pleased. The work climate had worsened in the past year. Some people who'd hired him then refused to pay, threatening to call ICE instead. He'd lost $900 jobs and $4,000 paychecks to such threats, his wife said.

So Benito put down his coffee cup, took the phone and told the man he would come that afternoon.

A moment later, the phone buzzed again.

The same voice.

Couldn't Benito come now? The caller lived just a few blocks away on East 12th St.

"So he gave me the baby and got his tape measure," Carol said with heavy sadness. "He said he'd be back in a few minutes."

It was just a few minutes. Then came the knock at the door. Carol opened it to three men wearing ICE jackets. Her heart froze. Did Benito Rubio live there?

"I told them he'd gone to an appointment, and they said, no, he'd gone to meet them and he was now in their custody," she said, her voice edging with tears and anger.

"They couldn't come to our house without a warrant so they'd lured him outside," she said. "The arrest report claimed they'd found him wandering the streets but that's not true. They'd called him."

The ICE agents handed her Benito's tape measure, and when the small woman followed them into the apartment house parking lot, pleading to see her husband, one agent stopped, put his hand on his pepper spray and warned her not to follow them.

So she watched the three black SUVs pull away in the snow.

Three days later, Benito called from the ICE detention center in Aurora. "He said they'd picked up 30 people that day."

It would be almost 60 days before Carol saw her husband again and, by then, he was handcuffed to a Denver hospital bed and dying, his organs failing.

"My husband had never been sick, never been to a hospital, and suddenly he's dying?" his widow asked.

Carol Rubio and their three children were allowed to see him once in late April and he had severe abdominal pain and was withering away. Doctors at a Denver hospital said they were doing tests and would probably need to do surgery.

"My husband was crying and told me he was dying," she said.

Then all further visitation requests ran into federal red tape. Because he was a multiple immigration offender, Benito was told he'd be charged as a felon and likely go to prison.

So he was transferred to a federal prison in Englewood. That's where he started complaining of belly pain and even fainted in his cell.

When Carol tried to make further hospital visits, she was told the people who needed to approve the request were on vacation or there were other obstacles. Benito was now in the custody of U.S. Marshals Service. No, they couldn't give Carol information on his condition either.

Desperate, she even called doctors at the hospital, who warned her they weren't allowed to share information either. Please don't call again, they said.

On May 1, a federal warden telephoned. Carol should bring the children and come immediately. Benito was in a coma.

"I got very upset. I demanded to know why no one had told me anything for weeks, and she said I was free to visit now because they were dropping all charges. No more guards or marshals."

In fact, Benito had died during surgery and been revived and put on life support until his family could see him.

A sister drove the family to Denver, where they found Benito gaunt and comatose, his legs swollen with edema, machines keeping him alive.

But the warden was right. The only remaining trace of federal agents were the dark bruises on his wrists from the handcuffs.

"One of the nurses said she'd wanted to call me and tell me what was happening, but the (federal officers) wouldn't let her," Carol said.

The family stayed with him for several days and then Carol agreed to turn off the machines. The lifeless man in bed didn't even gag anymore when nurses cleaned out his breathing tube.

Benito Rubio -- free spirit, family man and a stucco craftsman -- died at 6:58 a.m. on May 7. His wife remembers the time exactly.

"They said he'd died of 'valley fever,' this rare disease that farmworkers sometimes get," Carol said. "But he hadn't worked in the fields in a long time.

"I think the stress of being arrested and having to leave his family again was just too much for him. He'd always taken care of us and now he was going to be sent away."

In a dark sense, Benito got the last word on his immigration status. His ashes are back in Pueblo with his family. No one wants to deport them.

"We couldn't afford a funeral," his widow said simply.