FACES DEPORT AFTER SEEKING GREEN CARD:
Dad of two was arrested at immigration interview
A Flushing man with two young kids and a U.S. citizen wife is facing deportation to his native China — after getting arrested by ICE when he showed up for an interview to get his green card.
Xiu Qing You, 39, came in for the interview late last month thinking he was on track to finally get the permanent residency he was eligible for through his marriage to a citizen. Instead, ICE agents arrived and shipped him off to a New Jersey detention center where he’s been locked up ever since, according to his family and court papers.
“It’s like the sky is falling on me,” said his distraught wife, Yu Mei Chen.
The couple have a 6-yearold daughter and 4-year-old son, both born in the United States.
“I don’t know what to do now. And the kids are calling for their father, asking ‘Where’s my father?’ every day,” said Chen, 37.
You, who has been in the country for 18 years, was issued a final order of deportation in 2002 after his claim for asylum was denied. But he stayed put, and the feds never enforced the order — until now.
He applied for permanent residency in 2015, and he and his wife came in for an interview on May 23 to answer questions designed to make sure their marriage was legit. Then Chen was asked to step out while You finished the grilling on his own. She never saw her husband again.
“When we went there, we were very happy. I never thought this would happen,” Chen said.
She called her husband a “very good man” with no criminal record who she never thought the government would see reason to remove from the country.
“Everything was in chaos,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep at night at all. I’m on the verge of a mental collapse.”
The couple run a nail salon in Connecticut, where Chen typically worked long hours while her husband headed home to Flushing to take care of the kids.
Now, six-year-old Mia has been waking up crying at night, and was heartbroken when her father failed to show up for a school trip he had signed up to attend.
“Her father never broke a promise,” Chen said. “He’d never lie to her.”
The mom said she’s been staying up late struggling to help the kindergartener with homework, looking up words one by one in the dictionary because her English isn’t as good as her husband’s.
Chen has told her kids her husband is out of town working, but said Mia is old enough to realize something isn’t right.
“She senses something bad has happened to her father, so she’s crying and crying,” she said.
You’s lawyer, Yee Ling Poon, has asked a court for a stay of deportation, appealed the denial of his permanent residency, and is seeking to reopen his asylum claim on the grounds that he fears being persecuted for his Catholic faith if he returns to China.
They haven’t received rulings, and You could be deported at any time.
Marriage to a U.S. citizen had been a reliable way to get legal residency, but under President Trump, a growing number of immigrants with old deportation orders have faced arrest when they show up for their interview.
ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the case.
You’s sister Sui Qin You, 44, said she was in disbelief when Chen, who she originally introduced to her brother, told her he had been detained.
“I could not believe it. I thought I heard it wrong,” she said. “I just wish that the government would not deport my brother. This is very cruel to the children.”
Chen said in phone calls with her husband, he frets over fellow prisoners sent off for deportation each day and fears he could be next.
“He cries over the phone. I have never seen him cry in my life,” she said. “He misses the kids so much.”