Migration agents detain an immigrant after an interview on a green card

Photo: from the personal archive of the family

Last week, 21-year-old Yale University student Vivian Andazola Marquez accompanied her father to a scheduled interview for a green card. As a result, his lawyer and translator were pushed out of the door, and his father was detained for further deportation. The story tells the edition ThinkProgress.

October 12 Viviana, along with her father Melesio Morales and his lawyer, came to the USCIS Denver office for a status change interview to become a permanent resident of the United States.

At first, the interview with the USCIS agent was excellent. As expected, the officer checked all the documents, asked additional questions. By the end of the interview, the agent asked Vivian to leave the room.

“The agent told me that Dad had been recommended for approval for a new status, but the agent still had questions and asked me to leave the room,” Vivian said. “I thought it was strange, but I left the room.” After about 15-20 minutes, the lawyer and translator came out and told me that three ICE agents had come to detain my father and that they were not allowed to even explain his rights to him.”

“It was a complete shock,” Vivian said. “I looked at the lawyer, and I was confused. When ICE agents detained my father, they forcibly pushed my father's lawyer and translator out and closed the door on them."

ICE spokesperson informed the publication ThinkProgressthat the agency reinstated the preliminary order of deportation of Andazola Morales, and he will remain in custody “until he is expelled from the United States”.

Hans Meyer, a Denver immigration attorney who represents Melesio, told a correspondent Denver Postthat the ICE agency detained the father and four other US citizens on a document prohibiting entry into the country (Orders of exclusion), which he received when he tried to enter the southern US border in 1997. Orders of exclusion - are no longer a legal document, but more or less function as an element of deportation. Melecio returned in 1998 without examination and has lived in the United States since then. Earlier this year, Viviana, a US citizen, was able to apply for his green card. The process went smoothly until the last week. Now he may be deported due to the old order.

“We thought we were going to walk out of the building with my dad’s green card,” Viviana said. “I left not knowing what would happen to my father now.”

The detention of Melesio can cause a whole chain of events that will change the course of life of Viviana. She is the eldest of four children, so the financial burden of the family will fall on her shoulders if the father is deported. Vivian has another semester to study at Yale as an immigration lawyer. If her father is detained for a longer period or if he faces deportation, Vivians will need to abandon their studies and look for work in order to financially support their three younger brothers and sisters.

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