After living in the United States for 35 years, these parents were expelled in Colombia

Orange County, California CNN –

Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez have qualified the House of the United States since 1989. Their three daughters, now large, were all born and raised in California.

The couple led biblical studies in their southern church of California and volunteered in the pantry during the Pandemic Covid-19.

For nearly four decades, they built a life here raising three girls, giving back to their community and recently welcoming their first grandchildren, their daughter Stephanie Gonzalez wrote on a Gofundme for the family. Now they are treated as criminals.

Last month, the parents registered before an immigration court of Santa Ana, just as they have been doing since 2000, Stephanie wrote in an email at CNN.

But this recording ended with a very different result.

The couple was arrested and handcuffed during their appointment on February 21 and put in police custody, where they spent three weeks before being expelled in Colombia.

They expected that they should leave and planned to do so, but not in the way it happened, said Monica Crooms, an Orange County immigration lawyer who began working with the couple in 2018.

We did not expect them to be apprehended and detained in detention. And again, it's no longer really unique for them. This occurs across the country, Crooms said to CNN, indicating recent changes in immigration policy in the United States two months in the current administration.

The Gonzalezes have spent many years looking for a viable path to citizenship, paid their taxes and never had a problem with the law, according to Crooms and their daughters.

Ideally, the couple would have had time to put their business in order and say goodbye to their daughters and grandchildren, according to Crooms. But that didn't happen.

We had to go get their car in the parking lot and we couldn't say goodbye, said Stéphanie.

Gladys and Nelson came to the United States without authorization in 1989, according to a declaration of immigration and the application of customs dated March 14. They had no visas when they arrived, said Croms, but he was authorized to ask for asylum. The couple was fleeing crime in their native Colombia, according to Crooms and their daughter Stephanie.

In 2000, the immigration court found no legal reason which would allow Gladys and Nelson to stay in the United States and they received a voluntary departure order, which gives people a certain time to leave the country at their expense to avoid an expulsion order, according to Ice.

They were looking for a way to legalize their status in the way they were available to them at the time in the 1990s, said Crooms. Unfortunately, they were victims of fairly blatant predatory immigration practices.

The Gonzalezes did not plan to leave the United States after the adoption of the order, according to Crooms, which said that the couples lawyer had misleaded them that the order could be on appeal and perhaps led to possible legalization.

After seeing other lawyers, they quickly learned that they were in a very precarious situation with regard to their immigration status, added Crooms. The couple spent thousands of dollars in legal advisor over the years, and some of those they have hired have proven to be immigration lawyers, said Crooms.

Gladys, 55, and Nelson, 59, have exhausted all the legal options to stay in the United States between March 2000 and August 2021, including the revisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2001 and 2018, citizenship and immigration services in 2010, and the American court of appeal for the 9th circuit in 2021, Ice announced in a press release.

For two decades, the couple remained under a supervision order, added Crooms. Thanks to the Department of Internal Security, the program allows people with dismissal orders to stay in the United States and register at least once a year while they are preparing to leave the country.

The couples expulsion officer had not pushed to leave before 2018, leveling with them that it was time to leave the country if their status could not be legalized, said Crooms.

When the Gonzalezes fled Colombias Capital City, they feared for their lives.

As my parents left Bogota, the city and the country were known as the capital of the murder of the world, Stephanie wrote. They fled violent drug violence in which they were forced to live.

After Nelson submitted an asylum request, the couple was the victim of flagrant immigration fraud by their first lawyer, their daughter told CNN.

Their initial lawyer was not even a lawyer and took their money, then their office closed for a criminal investigation, said Stéphanie.

The Immigration Act was endemic to fraud in the late 1980s and early 90s, and my two parents were struck off. It is difficult to obtain citizenship, and my parents had only one opportunity to refresh the documents that the initial lawyer has deposited in an incorrect manner.

Over the past 25 years, my parents have been in the justice system and called on another opportunity due to an ineffective lawyer, said Stephanie. This ninth Circuit Court of Appeal rejected the request under examination in 2022.

Under the American immigration law, those who illegally live in the country can take legal measures to avoid withdrawal, according to Ice. However, once they have exhausted all procedures and calls, foreigners remain subject to a final dismissal order of an immigration judge and the ice must execute this order, said the agency.

But the girl and the couples lawyer emphasize that the Gonzalez were treated unfairly during the elimination process.

My parents loved this country, sacrificed all their money to try to earn citizenship, but failed by the system, Stephanie told CNN. They had to, at worst, had to have the dignity to settle their affairs and to turn to a country in which they have not lived since the 1980s, and not to be thrown into a detention center which is only another name for a prison, without any knowledge of their release.

Gladys and Nelson were separated and taken into custody for about three weeks, in detention establishments in California, Arizona and Louisiana, according to Crooms. Their expulsion was in part delayed because of a government error, she said.

The Ministry of Internal Security has lost its passports, said Crooms. The Colombian government had to provide DHS on travel documents that would allow the couple to be deleted, she added.

The couple's girls still hold hope that their parents will be able to return to the United States, said Stephanie. Currently, the family focuses on the help of Gladys and Nelson acclimatizing to life in Colombia.

We were able to collect $ 65,000 to help my parents rebuild their new life in Colombia, but also to pay the best lawyers so that one day they can come back, she added.

The couple cannot return to the United States for at least 10 years due to a 1996 law which says that anyone who has been in the country illegally for a year or more, and does not follow a voluntary starting order, has been subject to a bar, said Crooms.

I think they can come back. I do not plan that it is in the next 10 years, said Crooms. And if there is a serious change to the Immigration Act, then there is no saying.

Crooms had accompanied the couple to their immigration checks every year since 2018, but this year, they did not ask them to join them. If they had called him, said Crooms, she would have advised them to prepare for the start and put their things in order, given the current immigration climate.

I don't know why they didn't call me. I think they really had the impression that everything was fine in the past, said Croms, adding that anyone is on the order of supervision, which must register, should predict that it is a real possibility for them that they can be apprehended and deleted.

Illegal immigrants and permanent residents should also be extremely cautious during his travels, said Crooms.

Trump's repression of administrations against immigration violations will continue to have an impact on people such as Gladys and Nelson, Stephanie told Crooms and Stephanie, as well as minority American citizens and immigrants in the United States.

The number of people detained and put in these places is absolutely heartbreaking and I hope that this administration would realize that the detrimental affect that this will have on so many American families, said Stephanie.

CNNS Julia Vargas Jones reported to the County of Orange and Amanda Musa and Holly Yan reported and wrote to Atlanta. CNNS Alberto Moya and Norma Galeana contributed to this report.

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