So after 17 years in the US, why hadn’t Barrios gotten a green card and applied for US citizenship?
Illegal aliens cannot get green cards because they are illegal aliens.
Green cards must be applied for in their home country and they have to wait their turn there.
Once you are illegal, there is no path back to being legal besides returning to your home country and filing the proper application so you can wait your turn in line. This is not a children’s game of “hide and seek” where you can run faster than the seeker back to be safe on home base. The requirement for a properly completed I-9 form has been in place since the 80s and employers who haven’t figured out how to manage their business legally by now deserve the full weight of consequences.