A Mother Took Her Sons to an ICE Check-In. She Never Saw Them Again. | No criminal records. Pursuing green cards. Under Trump, it doesn’t matter.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/alma-lopez-diaz-ice-deported-el-salvador.html

26 comments

  1. Archive if you hit a paywall: https://web.archive.org/web/20250512151132/https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/alma-lopez-diaz-ice-deported-el-salvador.html

    >Alma Lopez Diaz was sitting in a waiting room of 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan when an officer came out with one of her son’s wallets and another’s debit card.

    >She had walked into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office with her sons Josue, 19, an usher at the family’s church, and Jose, 20, a recent high-school graduate, to accompany them on a routine check-in with the authorities. She also brought her youngest son, Mateo, a nonverbal 8-year-old with Moebius syndrome, a neurological disorder, who has seizures and requires constant care.

    >Alma, 38, was alarmed. It had always been her custom to go as a family to the boys’ ICE appointments since they came from El Salvador in 2016 and after being denied asylum. She didn’t see why they should be targeted now, given neither had a criminal history — not even a school disciplinary record, says their lawyer. In their pastor’s “heartfelt plea” to immigration authorities, he described the brothers in writing as “free from vices.”

    >Yet at this check-in, the situation was different from in years past. An officer told Alma that Jose and Josue were now detained: “They are not going to be returning.”

  2. These are people who were brought to the US at ages 10 and 11, undocumented. That’s worth deporting them over??? They didn’t commit any crimes, and they made sure to show up to their ICE check-ins. They built lives here, and were volunteers at their church. Are American citizens supposed to be happy that these completely harmless people were separated from their family and are out of the country?!

    Too bad they’re not Afrikaners or else they’d be welcome here…

  3. The goal is to make people reluctant to comply with immigration which is just going to cost us more tax dollars to inflate the numbers of non compliant individuals.

  4. Oh my gods that poor mother. I’m sure she is out of her mind right now. And where are the boys? Are they going to the detention center forever?

  7. > Last Tuesday, they were denied a stay of removal and their deportation was scheduled for that coming Friday, just two weeks shy of when Josue was supposed to attend his high-school graduation ceremony. “Don’t worry about your graduation,” an official talking to him about his mental health said. “Don’t worry about that stuff. Just put your mind to El Salvador. You’re not from here anymore.” Early the next morning, Alma was told that her sons were going to be removed that same day — her birthday.

    Can someone please explain to this lady that we had to send a message to the Democrats about Palestine? That’ll help, I think.

  8. >Last Tuesday, they were denied a stay of removal and their deportation was scheduled for that coming Friday, just two weeks shy of when Josue was supposed to attend his high-school graduation ceremony. “Don’t worry about your graduation,” an official talking to him about his mental health said. “Don’t worry about that stuff. Just put your mind to El Salvador. You’re not from here anymore.”

  9. Why, why would you fuckjng do that in this political climate? It feels we aren’t far off hiding Jews in our basements from the nazi..

    Edit: missed the part they were getting deported on Thursday. That majorly sucks but they don’t deserve to be detained until then either. 

  10. Arrest Trump today

    Make it a slogan and repeat it until it happens

  11. Sorry boys, we had to deport you to make room for well-to-do white South African settlers.

  12. Clinton warned you about the deplorables and you used it to attack her.

  13. I see “pursuing a green card” a lot in these stories. 

    Is that a particular processing status, or is it just meant to convey that it was their intention to get a green card in the near future?

    Edit: from the two replies I’ve gotten, it’s still not clear to me. I’m asking in the general case.

  14. These are incredibly dark times, and as a European, I’m always struck by how little Americans seem to care about one another—at least on a systemic level.

    People go bankrupt over basic healthcare, kids are shot in schools and nothing changes, and somehow it all just continues like it’s normal. There’s this deep sense of resignation instead of outrage. It’s not just healthcare or guns either—there’s no paid parental leave, homelessness is treated like a crime, and even basic dignity seems like something you have to earn. It’s hard to watch a country with so many resources let so many people fall through the cracks.

    And then there’s ICE. The idea that people can be ripped from their homes, sometimes after living in the U.S. for decades, and deported often without due process is chilling.

  15. >Alma, 38, was alarmed. It had always been her custom to go as a family to the boys’ ICE appointments since they came from El Salvador in 2016 and after being denied asylum. She didn’t see why they should be targeted now, given neither had a criminal history

    She didn’t see why?

    To have been alive in the USA during the 1st trump administration deportations, to see him campaign for a 2nd term on a promise for mass deportations of 20 million people, to see him for that past 100 days totally ignore the Constitution, and yet to not see that her boys would be targets for ICE is…

    How, just how can so many people be so delusional?
    Do most people spend all day watching TikTok? Or are they just living in a fantasy world where the leopards will never come for them?

  16. This is disgusting. I can’t even read past the first bit. The poor woman, she must be dying from guilt

  18. I have taken my time coming to terms with why people cheer this on. Why it makes them happy.

    I dont understand.

    But what I do know is that every person who feels a sense of pride, joy, or feelings of happiness in any way is beyond the pale. Im done trying to understand you.

    I do understand you in the same way that you think you know me any anyone else who thinks different than you.

    You are evil. Evil exists in this world and we are staring at it every day when someone looks at this and says, “Good”.

    My feelings of dread are gone.

    Now Im mad. I have a fury and contempt for these evil people and the sympathizers of evil. My compassion ends for those who end the normal order compassion.

    You have none for anyone else. I have none for you.

  20. What is wrong with people on this thread?! For God’s sake, what was she meant to do? If they don’t show up for required check-ins while they pursue citizenship, their years of good standing gets wiped out. They become wanted illegals. So they did what our government told them to do – and the boys were deported. The brothers were here for almost a decade, zero disciplinary record in school – actually making the honors list – zero police record of any kind. Not so much as a parking ticket. *They did nothing wrong.* They came here as children, as refugee families have throughout our country’s history, to escape crushing poverty and horrendous treatment by their homeland. We are meant to be the country that welcomes the oppressed! What does it mean to you to be an American? Do you want to wipe out the words of the Statue of Liberty?

    *Give me your tired, your poor,
    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
    I lift my lamp beside the golden door.*

  22. ICE is the gastapo. Trump has called to hire 20k more “agents” as well. Wonder how many of them will be from the pardoned capitol riot crew.

  23. I mean the entire point of MAGA is to make america white again. This shouldn’t be a surprise. I’m just thankful my skin color lets me suckle on the teat of white privilege long enough to get out of here before they get me too.

    Remember, the color of economic privilege is green. But the color of existential privilege, that’s white.

  25. This comment is probably gonna get glanced over, but let me give you the opinion of a very concerned Canadian.

    How did you guys let this happen and how is still happening? If any of what’s going on there happened her, our prime minister would immediately be in jail. The courts would’ve stopped any illegal activity. Is the issue that captain orange man just doesn’t care? If that’s the case why not just arrest him? Hasn’t he already ignored multiple court orders? He said he rigged the election. That was pretty obvious from the get go. And nobody looked into it? Now he’s illegally detaining people. Not to mentioning he’s detaining American citizens. The whole situation there is beyond wild and as I’m outsider looking in, I can’t help but laugh and hope the situation gets better. Not to mention he has no clue how tariffs work and he single handedly almost destroyed the economy in less than 3 months. Like how the living hell did any of this happen?

  26. Any ICE officer going allong with this is just as guilty of this crime as Trump.

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