Donald Trump reassured Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients that they had “nothing to worry about,” but his administration has forcefully separated a DACA recipient from his U.S. citizen husband and left him stranded in a country he hasn’t called home since he was six years old.
Dreamer Marco Villada had been attempting to adjust his legal status through his U.S. citizen husband, Israel Serrato. The complex process would involve having to return to Mexico to apply through a consulate there, and Villada asked for—and received—a difficult-to-obtain “provisional waiver” from the government. He was told it would allow him to return back to the U.S. But, once in Mexico, his visa was denied.
“My spouse, the love of my life, Marco Villada, is stuck in a country where he doesn’t belong,” Serrato says in a new video from the National Immigration Law Center, which has launched a lawsuit, along with the Law Offices of Stacy Tolchin and Mayer Brown LLP., to reunite the family in the U.S. “He belongs here in the United States with me, his family, his friends.”
Serrato said that when they arrived in Mexico, they initially had plans to celebrate, and for good reason. They were following the government’s rules and had the appropriate paperwork. Everything should have gone off without a hitch. Instead, Serrato says Villada emerged from the appointment devastated.
”When he came back … I’ve never seen him like that,” he said. “He was having a panic attack. He could barely talk. I had to find a place for him to sit down. And the tears were just flowing from his face … and he said they denied him.” With Villada unable to return to the U.S., Serrato left alone, and has been struggling to continue running their household.
“Unfortunately, Marco and Israel are experiencing the devastating impact of Washington’s failure to find a solution for Dreamers,” said Andrew Pincus, a partner at Mayor Brown LLP. “Marco would not be stuck in Mexico today if President Trump and Congress had reached agreement on a solution for Dreamers.”
Trump rescinded the DACA program last September, with bipartisan blowback leading him to tell the GOP-led Congress to pass permanent protections for DACA recipients. Congress has failed to do so, but they’re not solely to blame, because at the very top, Trump has torpedoed at least six bipartisan plans that members have put forward.
“You have called on Congress to act to address this issue,” the Congressional Hispanic Caucus wrote in a letter to Trump earlier this year. “However, you have thwarted every bipartisan, narrow agreement that seeks to provide relief to Dreamers and instead have attempted to force a deeply unpopular, anti-immigrant agenda through Congress.”
That relief is desperately needed for young immigrants like Villada, who following another broken promise from the administration is now in a country he no longer recognizes. “Both me and Marco,” Serrano continues, “grew up here in the U.S. We both have our roots here. We both have all of our siblings, our parents, our jobs. We have our lives here.”
Time is of the essence for Marco and his loved ones. Click here to sign and share a petition to #BringMarcoBack to where he belongs.