A newlywed California woman said her husband was handcuffed and hauled away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents moments after he attended an asylum hearing at San Francisco Immigration Court.
Shaylyn Ordaz and her husband, Anyelo, went to the courthouse together on May 23.
“Imagine this: you’re one month away from celebrating 6 months of marriage to the love of your life. You’re in the honeymoon phase. You’re planning your life together. Thinking that you’re doing everything right, you walk out of an immigration hearing just to have your spouse immediately detained without any explanation,” Ordaz wrote on a verified GoFundMe page.
“That’s what happened,” she added.
Anyelo reportedly arrived in the United States in early 2024, seeking asylum from Colombia. He does not have a criminal history in the U.S. nor in his home country, Ordaz said, and he moved to the U.S. seeking a better life.
“My husband attended all of his check-ins and asylum hearings as required by law. Then, thinking we were almost through with the asylum process, the government lawyer in the courtroom asked for the case to be dismissed,” Ordaz wrote.
ICE officers were allegedly waiting in a hallway just outside the courtroom.
Ordaz wrote, “As soon as we walked out of the courtroom, before we could even talk about anything that happened, we were separated by ICE. As I was taken away from him around the corner, I heard the handcuffs.”
ICE officers allegedly told her that “circumstances changed,” but they did not elaborate with more information explaining why Anyelo was being detained..
Ordaz said officers transported her husband to an immigration detention center that was a five-hour drive away. “My husband is being treated like a criminal,” she wrote. She is raising donations through GoFundMe to hire immigration attorneys for Anyelo’s case.
Department of Homeland Security officials are ramping up enforcement actions against people seeking asylum at federal immigration courthouses nationwide. Multiple migrants were detained by ICE officers at San Francisco Immigration Court in May, witnesses and justice advocates said.
On Tuesday, ICE agents were seen conducting an operation in South San Jose along Snell Avenue and Blossom Hill Road, the San Jose Police Department confirmed.
An ICE spokesperson told Nexstar’s KRON that people were arrested. “Those arrested had executable final orders of removal by an immigration judge and had not complied with that order,” the spokesperson said.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said, “While we don’t have details about the operation … I’ll reiterate my call for the Federal Government to focus on serious and violent criminals, not people who are contributing members of our community.”
A senior spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security previously told KRON, “Most aliens who illegally entered the United States within the past two years are subject to expedited removals. ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal, as they always should have been.”
ICE’s website has a “self deportation” section warning immigrants without legal status to leave the U.S. before they are arrested by federal immigration officers and transported to detention centers.
