She went to get her green card and now faces deportation. Did the feds trick her?

[ad_1] On Sept. 16, Barbara Gomes Marques Might and her husband arrived on the downtown Los Angeles federal immigration constructing for what they believed could be the ultimate step in Marques Might’s course of to acquire her inexperienced card.

The interview course of had gone easily, Tucker Might recalled. However towards the top, a federal immigration official she had met with mentioned he wanted Marques Might to observe him so he might photocopy her passport, he recalled. She and her husband believed the journey could be transient and they'd have the ability to go away.

As an alternative, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent arrested Marques Might, a 38-year-old Brazilian nationwide who has no felony report and works as a movie director in Los Angeles. She was handcuffed and transferred to the ICE facility in Adelanto in San Bernardino County earlier than being despatched to Louisiana. In the meantime, her husband and her lawyer scrambled to attempt to cease her deportation.

On Wednesday, Marques Might was scheduled to board a 6 a.m. flight to her house nation, however her legal professional was in a position to file a movement to reopen her deportation proceedings and maintain her on U.S. soil, not less than briefly. As of Thursday, she had been moved to Arizona and can return to California whereas her deportation proceedings stay open, her legal professional mentioned.

“It’s very a lot an ongoing nightmare,” Tucker Might mentioned in an interview this week.

Division of Homeland Safety officers didn't reply to a request for remark about Marques Might’s case.

In accordance with her legal professional, Marcelo Gondim, Marques Might arrived within the U.S. in 2018 on a vacationer visa. Gondim mentioned she utilized for an extension however was denied. She ended up overstaying her visa, he mentioned, and in 2019, the federal government despatched her a discover to look for a court docket listening to to start deportation proceedings.

However Marques Might had moved and had not saved her handle updated with immigration court docket, and so the letter by no means reached her, Gondim mentioned. As a result of she failed to look, the federal government issued a elimination order in opposition to her.

In April 2025, the couple obtained married and he or she started the method to use for a inexperienced card, Gondim mentioned. Below the Biden administration, he mentioned, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers would have notified Marques Might that there was a elimination order issued for her and directed her on the way to get it resolved.

Overstaying a visa is just not thought-about a felony offense, and penalties are issued if the individual leaves the nation. In instances involving married {couples}, Gondim mentioned, there’s an computerized forgiveness for overstaying a visa, reduction that Marques Might would’ve been eligible for.

However the Trump administration has as a substitute used courthouses and Citizenship and Immigration Providers places of work to interact in mass arrests of migrants attending mandated hearings and appointments. Quickly, the USCIS could have expanded powers.

In September, the Division of Homeland Safety issued a brand new directive that may permit the company — which administers and oversees immigration purposes — to implement immigration legislation with “particular brokers.” The order goes into impact Monday.

“USCIS could have better capability to help DHS efforts by dealing with investigations from begin to end, as a substitute of referring sure instances to Homeland Safety Investigation inside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” the company mentioned in an announcement.

After Marques Might was arrested, Might struggled to determine the place federal authorities had despatched his spouse. Lastly, he was in a position to get in contact together with her, and he or she detailed how, when she was arrested in L.A., she burst into tears, and an ICE agent took a selfie together with her, he mentioned.

Throughout her switch between detention services, she informed him, she was subjected to harsh circumstances, together with how she went with out meals or water for greater than 12 hours and had entry to loos with no rest room paper. She was given solely bread and water and a few instances an apple.

Marques Might, who had surgical procedure this 12 months for persistent again issues, was additionally denied medical therapy for a tool she makes use of to handle her ache, he mentioned. Might went public together with her arrest greater than every week after she was detained, he mentioned, as a result of he had run out of all authorized avenues.

“There's an open disdain being proven by ICE for the essential rule of legislation for this nation,” he mentioned.

Might started posting about her arrest on-line, garnering a whole lot of responses and help. A GoFundMe web page had raised greater than $50,000 as of Thursday. U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), who counts Marques Might as one among her constituents, mentioned she was “doing every thing doable to stop her deportation and I’m demanding that ICE observe the legislation.”

“Sadly, Barbara’s case is just not distinctive, it displays a broader sample underneath Trump’s immigration insurance policies which might be illegal and merciless,” she posted on X.

Gondim mentioned he repeatedly tried to cease her from being transferred to services outdoors California, solely to seek out boundaries and delays by ICE officers to getting authorized paperwork for her to signal. From Adelanto, she was transferred to Arizona, then Louisiana.

The federal government is just not doing something mistaken by complying with the elimination order, he mentioned, “however they can't forestall the individual from getting access to counsel and have the ability to current their case to file some type of reduction [so they] don’t get unjustly deported.”

To cease Marques Might’s imminent deportation, Gondim filed separate motions to reopen her deportation proceedings and terminate her deportation proceedings. Till a choose guidelines on the case, Gondim mentioned, ICE can not deport her. He mentioned he’s hopeful that she is going to find yourself being launched.

“Since she has already an permitted petition from her U.S. citizen husband, and he or she has a transparent path to submitting a brand new [application] and getting her inexperienced card,” he mentioned, an immigration court docket choose won't be interested by pursuing a case in opposition to an individual who ought to be permitted for everlasting residency by legislation.

Till then, Might mentioned his spouse’s first function movie has been placed on maintain till she may be launched. In 2021, Marques Might premiered her brief movie, “Pretas,” on the Culver Theater for the L.A. Brazilian Movie Competition. The movie facilities on Black ladies and their experiences coping with racism and carries a message of making a extra anti-racist society.

“I really like Los Angeles a lot,” she mentioned in an interview on the time. “I couldn’t be happier. It was a premiere I wasn’t anticipating.”

It was their shared love of movies that bonded the couple, who met on a relationship app, Might mentioned. They spent a whole lot of their time collectively watching films, sharing popcorn after which discussing what labored and didn’t within the movies.

Might says he now thinks about all of the immigrants who haven't dedicated any crimes however lack the authorized assets to keep away from deportation.

“These are human beings that these horrible issues are taking place to,” he mentioned. “If anyone reads tales like this, in the event that they suppose this doesn’t apply to them as a result of they’re not married to an immigrant, I urge these individuals to think about what they suppose comes subsequent.”