October 14, 2022 will remain in Patricio Gómez’s mind as the most horrible day of his life. Still tucked under his covers, and with only a couple of minutes to go before his alarm went off, to go to work, a loud banging on his bedroom door in his Staten Island home woke him up.
The placid dream he was in, in a matter of seconds turned into a “nightmare” for the single father, which lasted 90 days and 90 nights. Six “La Migra” agents, without identifying themselves, filled his room. After a few minutes asking him questions, they informed him that there was a deportation order against him and that he would soon be sent back to his country, Ecuador, where he left when he was just 16 years old, in search of a better life. life.
Without fully understanding what was happening, the officers handcuffed him by the hands and feet. They took his cell phone and his wallet, and only allowed him to hastily put on a pair of pants, a shirt, and shoes, before putting him in a vehicle and taking him to an immigration detention center in Pennsylvania, far from his home. Far from his 6-year-old daughter Aliya, whom the 37-year-old Ecuadorian had left at her mother’s house the night before for “things of God” so that she could take her to school, because that Friday Patricio had to work earlier . Little she was saved from experiencing the painful scene.
Last Tuesday, January 10, 2023, will remain in Patricio Gómez’s mind as one of the happiest days of his life. By the time he had given up hope of ever being released and spent Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and the first days of 2023 locked up, doing nothing but sitting in his cell, weighing himself down with his thoughts and sadness, life owed him the smile.
Two weeks after being on the verge of being deported on a plane to Ecuador, an ICE officer came to the communal cell where they kept him along with some 65 other immigrants, of all criminal profiles, and after shouting ” 20 below”, the number they gave him since he arrived there, he received his late Three Kings gift.
“My blood ran cold. Although my lawyer had already achieved that until I get the response from the Court of Appeals to be able to reopen my case and fight it, they couldn’t deport me, I thought for a moment that this time they would deport me. I was very scared, because at 2 in the morning they had deported several colleagues and I had already come to the idea that I was going to be locked up there for at least two more months”, confesses the construction worker.
But the ‘La Migra’ agent came with good news: Patricio was going to be released. The pleas of his daughter, his sister Rosa, his lawyer and more than 2,000 people who signed a petition to have him released so he could be reunited with his little girl had borne fruit.
With injuries typical of confinement, such as severe bone pain, memory loss and trouble concentrating, and perhaps also having lost his job, at 5:30 p.m., Patricio was released from the Moshannon Valley Processing Center detention center, in Pennsylvania.
“I told my daughter’s mother by phone that they were going to release me. Together with my sister and my daughter they went to pick me up. It was a moment of emotion, but at the same time I didn’t know how to act. First they took me to the processing site, I had to return a stop of clothes that they give to one. It’s like the uniform: blue pants and shoes that feel like you’re walking around in stockings, a yellow T-shirt and a thin sheet, which is all they give you to cover yourself in bed. Then I saw my daughter in the distance, yelling at me from the car “daddy, daddy”, but since I was going with two guards, I didn’t know if I could run to hug her or if I had to wait for them to give me the order”, the immigrant narrated.
“Then when they told me ‘you’re free’, and they opened the door, my daughter jumped out of the car to hug me. It was like life was brought back to me. It was like having a soul again. My heart beat again. I had never been separated from my daughter for even a day. She and I have lived alone since she was 1 year old, ”Aliya’s father added from her home in Staten Island, where he opened the Christmas present that the girl had for her: a Yoda, a Star Wars character. “I still don’t think I’m back home and I got to sit down for breakfast with her cereal and milk. My daughter had not wanted to eat well since I was arrested. I was able to take her back to school and pick her up. They brought me back to life. I feel like I’m living a dream after such a nightmare.”
After commenting that the confinement made him lose more than 15 pounds, in the midst of his excitement to enjoy freedom again, the immigrant recounted that after leaving, he had to appear at the Federal Plaza office, where they put a shackle on him that monitors all his movements and where he has to be showing up every two weeks.
His next dream, for which he asks God to help him a lot, is that they reopen his case in Immigration to be able to stop his deportation and be able to rest assured that they will never separate him from his daughter, with whom he is in the car. Back home, they were singing songs by Christian Nodal, the favorite singer of the two, at the top of their lungs.
“It makes me happy to see my daughter happy and I know that now that we are together we are both fine. For this reason, although I know that the process that follows is long, I hope that everything turns out well and we can continue living our lives as before: going to football, singing, laughing and one day making Aliya’s wish to go to school come true. Disney to meet Elsa, her favorite character and that we can continue here, where we have our home and that they not send me to Ecuador, because my place is here, together with my daughter,” added Patricio.
“I ask the Immigration people to reopen my case and not destroy the life of my girl, who until today has only lived happiness and these last times were very hard and bitter and she does not deserve that. If we separate, it would be to take my life again. She would again be like a body that walks without a soul or anything inside, ”added the immigrant, who in his thoughts also has only thanks to someone he describes as his angel.
“Today I am happy and I am going to fight a hard battle to stay here, but this would not have been possible without the help of my lawyer Page Austin and the people from Make the Road who helped me. They are angels in my path that appeared after a lawyer robbed us because when my sister was detained in despair, she trusted another lawyer and they demanded $8,000 from her, and they did nothing for me,” said Patricio. “If it hadn’t been for Page, I would suddenly be in Ecuador and my daughter would have suffered a major trauma.”
The father of the family added that an ICE agent informed him that although his deportation order was from 2010, they had found his address because the Department of Motors and Vehicles provided his information, after he processed his driver’s license last March.
Regarding the case of Patricio Gómez, ICE revealed that he was detained because there is a deportation order and added that they carry out regular and recurring reviews of all cases, which includes reviews of individual facts and unique circumstances of each case.
“ICE officers placed Mr. Gómez in an alternative to detention program while he awaits the outcome of his case,” said the spokesman, referring to his release and confirming that the Ecuadorian has a deportation order issued in absentia by a judge, in 2010. “All noncitizens who violate immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention, and, if a final order of removal is issued, removal from the United States. ICE detention is not punitive. ICE detains people pursuant to immigration law.”
