Houston congressman visits El Salvador to meet with local man who was deported
U.S. Rep. Al Green still calls José Escobar one of his constituents, even though Escobar was deported after what he thought would be a routine check-in with immigration authorities.
That’s why Green, a Houston Democrat, flew to El Salvador on Saturday to meet with Escobar in the hopes it will call attention to the plight of families separated by deportation. Another 200,000 people could be forced to return there because President Donald Trump’s administration announced it would end a temporary visa program for Salvadorans.
Green and Escobar met at the airport in San Salvador, El Salvador’s capital. They were accompanied by José’s wife, Rose, who has remained in Houston with the couple’s two children, as well as an off-duty Houston police officer whose airfare was paid for by Green.
Green, a critic of Trump who last year introduced articles of impeachment against him, told Escobar he was committed to “doing everything we can to get you back with your family.”
Green said he felt obligated to try to help Escobar, who was deported in March despite not having a criminal record, according to his family. Escobar’s immigration court appeals have failed, though his attorneys are looking for new ways to petition on his behalf.
“If not for his place of birth, we would call him an American citizen who is all of the right things,” Green said. “This is the kind of citizen that we would admire.”
Escobar’s family settled in the U.S. in 2001 with temporary protected status, which was granted to Salvadorans who were victims of earthquakes that year. The program for El Salvador was extended by two presidential administrations, but the Trump administration announced in January that it would end it in September 2019.
Escobar, 32, settled in Houston at age 15. Only around the time he married his wife in 2006 did they realize he was in the U.S. illegally because his family hadn’t received the paperwork necessary for him to renew his visa.
An immigration judge ordered his deportation in 2006, and he was arrested in 2011 and detained for several months. After an intense lobbying campaign, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Houston field office director released Escobar in January 2012.
Shortly after taking office in January 2017, Trump signed an executive order widening the categories of immigrants without legal status who could be subject to deportation. Escobar went to an ICE office the next month to check in under the terms of his order and was detained until his deportation, his wife said.
ICE confirmed in a statement that it deported Escobar and that his release in 2012 was so “he could get his affairs in order prior to his removal.”
Escobar now lives with relatives in a town that’s about a three-hour drive from San Salvador. He worries about the gang members who control the streets and often accost people who have recently returned from the U.S.