A green card applicant was detained by the ICE agents because he missed a piece of mail from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services during a recent move.
Allan Dabrio Marrero, who is married to a US citizen, Matthew Marrero, and used to live in the Cayman Islands, was detained by ICE agents last week at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan. His husband and their church family are seeking his release, arguing that he has no criminal history and was meticulous with his paperwork, Newsweek reported.
“The way the narrative has been spun to the general public is that they’re going after the worst of the worst. And that is not true,” Matthew Marrero told ABC 7. “My husband is a contributing member to society, is proud to want to be an American.”
More cases of green card applicants married to US citizens have been reported in recent weeks, as the Trump administration tightened immigration enforcement against those who overstayed visas or had minor paperwork issues. While such arrests have been uncommon at Federal Plaza, the building has been the site of multiple protests over the detention of immigrants appearing before immigration judges.
Allan Marrero has lived in the US for over a decade. He left the Cayman Islands, where he was a citizen, to find a safer place to live as a member of the LGBTQ+ community and applied for asylum in the US. He met his husband via social media two years ago. The couple married and applied for Allan’s marriage-based green card, with his interview scheduled for last week in Lower Manhattan.
Unaware that he had missed a December 2022 notice summoning him to an immigration hearing, USCIS marked him as having failed to appear, triggering removal proceedings. At last week’s appointment, the couple learned that Allan had an order of removal. ICE agents then detained him and transferred him to Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, where he remains.
A GoFundMe campaign started by the family has raised over $15,500 to cover legal fees and visiting costs at the New Jersey detention centre.
The Department of Homeland Security stated that it targets the “worst of the worst” among alleged illegal immigrants, namely those with criminal convictions. Immigration advocates and attorneys say the evidence contradicts this claim, noting that Allan is one of a growing number of individuals arrested while lawfully pursuing a green card.
“I just want so badly to get my husband home. I hope, I pray, that he’ll be able to get out before the holidays,” Matthew Marrero told Documented in New York.
“He is a law-abiding, tax paying, work visa holding SHOULD BE citizen, who left the Cayman Islands to come to the USA to seek asylum from discrimination against homosexuality. A man who fell in love in a place he felt safe to do so. And after being married to Matthew for over two years, is entitled to a green card based on a Bonafide marriage. Not to be blindsided when doing what they were told is the right thing to do,” said Andrea Marrero, Allan’s sister-in-law, on GoFundMe.
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