After 35 years of life and 3 daughters born in US, couple deported to Columbia amid Donald Trump's crackdown
ByHT News Desk | Written by Asmita Ravi Shankar
Mar 26, 2025 10:03 AM IST
Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez had arrived in the US without authorisation back in 1989 and since then had been fighting to find legal ways to remain in America.
Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez, a couple who have called the United States home for 35 years, were recently deported back to Columbia amid President Donald Trump's massive crackdown on immigration.
Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez were arrested, handcuffed, held at detention centre and then were flown back to Columbia. (gofundme.com)
Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez were arrested, handcuffed, held at detention centre and then were flown back to Columbia. (gofundme.com)
The three daughters of the Gonzalez couple, who were all born and raised in California, have been left in shock over their parents' deportation.
‘Being treated as criminals’
One of their daughters, Stephanie Gonzalez, wrote on a GoFundMe page for her family, "For nearly four decades, they have built a life here - raising three daughters, giving back to their community, and recently welcoming their first grandchild. Now, they are being treated as criminals."
Last month, during their routine check in at an immigration court in Santa Ana, the couple were met with a different outcome than the one they have been witnessing since 2000. This time, the couple were arrested and handcuffed, put in federal custody, where they had to spend three weeks before being deported to Columbia, a CNN report said.
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Monica Crooms, an Orange County-based immigration attorney who had been working with the Gonzalezes since 2018, said, "They did expect that they would need to depart and were planning to do so, but not in the way that it happened."
"We didn't expect that they would be apprehended and held in custody. And again, it's not really unique to them anymore. It's happening across the country," Crooms told CNN.
The couple's shocking deportation comes in the backdrop of the immigration policy changes that have been made in the United States in the past two months under the new Donald Trump administration.
According to Crooms and their daughters, the Gonzalezes had been looking for a valid path to citizenship for many years, paying their taxes and never encountering any trouble with the law in America.
Ideally, the couple should have gotten time to collect their things, get their affairs in order and bid goodbye to their daughters and family. However, that did not happen, Crooms said.
"We had to go and pick up their car from the parking lot and didn't get to say goodbye," Stephanie was quoted as saying.
Gladys and Nelson Gonzelez in US in 1989
Gladys and Nelson had arrived in the US without authorisation back in 1989, a statement from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement from March 14 read. Crooms said that they had no visas for their arrival but, were given permission for asylum.
The couple's move to the US was made in their attempts to flee crime in their native country of Columbia. Stephanie wrote that when her parents left Bogota, the city and country was "known as the murder capital of the world", adding that the duo escaped the "rampant drug violence that they were forced to live in".
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After Nelson filed for asylum for the couple, the two became "victims of egregious immigration fraud by their initial attorney", Stephanie told CNN, adding that their initial attorney was not even an attorney, "and took their money and then their office shut down for a criminal investigation".
Stephanie mentioned that the immigration law was embroiled in fraud during the late 80s and early 90s, adding that her parents' next few attorneys were disbarred. "Getting citizenship is difficult, and my parents only had one opportunity to refile paperwork that the initial 'attorney' filed incorrectly," she added.
Later in 2000, the immigration court failed to find any reason that would legally allow Gladys and Nelson to stay in the US, issuing them a voluntary departure order. According to ICE, the order granted them some time to decide on leaving the country on their own and avoid a deportation order.
'Exhausted all legal options'
While the Gonzalezes were not planning on leaving the US even after the order was issued, Crooms said, they were reportedly misled by their attorney at the time by saying that the order could be appealed and even possibly win legalisation of their stay in America.
Between March 2000 and August 2021, the couple had "exhausted" all of their legal options to remain in the US, including reviews by the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2001 and 2018, Citizenship and Immigration services in 2010, and the US court of Appeals for the 9th circuit in 2021," ICE's statement was cited by CNN.
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Crooms said that the Gonzalezes had remained under supervision for two decades. The program, through the department of Homeland security, allows those with removal orders to stay in the US and check-in at least once a year while they prepare to leave the country.
Further, the Orange County-based immigration attorney said that the Gonzalezes deportation officer "had not pushed them to depart until 2018", indicating that it was time for them to leave the US if their status could not be legalized.
According to ICE, people living illegally in the US can take legal measures to avoid removal. "However, once they have exhausted all due process and appeals, the aliens remain subject to a final order of removal from an immigration judge and ICE must carry out that order."
However, what Gonzalezes' daughters and attorney stress upon is the unfair treatment they received during the removal. "My parents loved this country, sacrificed all of their money to try and gain citizenship, but were failed by the system. They should've, at worst, been given the dignity to settle their affairs and fly themselves back to a country they haven't lived in since the 1980s, and not thrown into a detention centre that is just another name for a jail, without any knowledge on when they would be released," Stephanie told CNN.
Crooms said that Gladys and Nelson were separated and placed in separate ICE custody for about three weeks, at detention facilities in California, Arizona and Louisiana. She said that their deportation had been delayed partially due to a government error.
"The Department of Homeland Security lost their passengers," Crooms said, after this the Columbian government had provide DHS with travel documents that would allow the couple to be removed from the US.
The Gonzalezes' daughters continue to be in dismay over this situation. They are still hopeful that their parents will be able to make their way back into the US some day.
Stephanie said, "The amount of people being detained and put into these places is absolutely heartbreaking, and I hope this (Trump) administration would realise the detrimental affect that it will have on so many American families.
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Read breaking news, latest updates from United States on topics related to politics, crime, along with national affairs. Stay up to date with news developments on Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.