Man deported after living in US nearly 30 years
With two immigration agents hovering nearby, Jorge Garcia pulled his family close for one final hug by security gates at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. His wife and 15-year-old daughter sobbed in his arms. His 12-year-old son stood stoically. Garcia was silent.
Soon after, the 39-yearold landscaper from Lincoln Park, Michigan, boarded a plane bound for Mexico, deported to his home country Monday after three decades of living, working and raising a family in the United States.
Garcia was brought to the country with an undocumented relative when he was 10 years old, according to the Detroit Free Press. He had been facing a removal order from immigration courts since 2009, but his deportation was stayed during the Obama administration as his family looked for ways to get him legal status. Under President Donald Trump, that was no longer an option.
“It’s just a nightmare,” his wife, Cindy Garcia, told the Detroit News. “You can’t even put it into words how it feels.”
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment Tuesday morning.
Jorge Garcia’s deportation turned him into the latest public face of what many of President Trump’s critics have called a cruel and excessive crackdown on undocumented immigrants by the administration. Under the Obama administration, people in Garcia’s position were rarely targeted for deportation.
Early last year, Trump issued an executive order expanding deportation priorities and rendering all categories of “removable aliens” subject to enforcement by ICE. The president and Department of Homeland Security officials say such measures are necessary to protect the public and national security.
When they tried to get him legal status in 2005, they wound up in deportation proceedings, she told ABC News. She added that he checked in regularly with ICE officials, never traveling outside their town without permission. He appears to have no criminal record in the U.S.
Garcia could be barred for 10 years or more, but his wife, an American citizen and retired autoworker, said she would fight to bring her husband back before then.