LOS ANGELES – “I’m a desperate man trying to get his wife back, and I’m also trying to open people’s eyes that this is a danger to everyone. This is a threat to the very rule of law that underlies everything about our justice system, not just our immigration courts,” said Tucker May.
May says he is running out of time. His wife, 38-year-old Barbara Gomes Marques, was arrested at what was supposed to be a routine green card interview at the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles. According to May, the interview initially appeared to go smoothly.
“He stood up and led us out of the interview area. As we were walking back toward the waiting area, he said, ‘Oh, I forgot to make a copy of Barbara’s passport, and the copier nearby is broken. Barbara, why don’t you follow me down the hall to the copier that works,'” May recalled.
Barbara followed the officer, while her husband and attorney stayed behind. That’s when, Tucker says, she was arrested. “They lied in order to separate her and make sure that while she was being detained, there was no one there to offer her any words of comfort or any words of legal advice, so that they could then pressure her into signing things that would allow them to expedite her deportation,” he said. “Fortunately, she’s a smart woman. She refused to sign what they put in front of her.”
Barbara, who was born in Brazil, has no criminal record, according to her husband. He says ICE is citing a missed immigration court date from 2019 linked to a letter that Tucker says was never received.
Tucker says cases like his wife’s reveal a bigger problem. “Most of the people who are being caught up in what’s going on right now are not dangerous criminals pushing drugs or doing anything remotely violent. They are the people like my wife, who are going in voluntarily and attempting to do things the right way. Or they are vulnerable people who are being picked up because the authorities believe they won’t have the power, money, time or energy to actually fight back.”
If Barbara is deported, May says he’ll be left with no choice. “I’m going to have to leave this country to be with the person who means most to me in this whole world and who shouldn’t be going through this in the first place.”
Family and friends have now set up a GoFundMe page to cover legal expenses as they fight to keep Barbara in the U.S.
FOX 11 reached out to Homeland Security for comment on Barbara’s case but has not heard back.
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