It seemed like a routine meeting about an application for a green card. Once it had ended, a federal agent asked Barbara Gomes-Marques May, 38, for a copy of her passport. They walked to a photocopier, but the agent said it was broken and asked Gomes-Marques May to follow him down the hallway to a different copier.
That took her out of the line of sight of her husband and lawyer, who were standing near the front desk. Instead of copying her passport, the agent handcuffed her, told her that she was being detained for deportation, and took her away.
Gomes-Marques May’s husband and lawyer had begun to worry a few minutes after she walked away with the agent, but they had no idea what happened until a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) representative told them about 15 minutes later that she had been detained. Every question they asked—Why? Where is she? What will happen next?—got no answer, except that Gomes-Marques May wouldn’t be going home with her husband that night.
That was 16 days ago. Since then, Gomes-Marques May, who has lived in the United States for seven years and is married to an American, was transported to at least three ICE detention centers, according to her husband. Her lawyer has asked a judge to temporarily halt the deportation and reopen her immigration case, but she might not even get a hearing in court before being put on a plane and flown out of the United States back to her native Brazil.
