Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez have called the United States home since 1989. Their three daughters, now grown, were all born and raised in California.
“For nearly four decades, they have built a life here — raising three daughters, giving back to their community, and recently welcoming their first grandchild,” their daughter Stephanie Gonzalez wrote on a GoFundMe page for the family. “Now, they are being treated as criminals.”
Last month, the parents checked in at an immigration court in Santa Ana, just “like they have been doing since 2000,” Stephanie wrote in an email to CNN.
But this check-in ended with a much different outcome.
The couple was arrested and handcuffed during their February 21 appointment and put in federal custody, where they spent three weeks before being deported to Colombia.
“We didn’t expect that they would be apprehended and held in custody. And again, it’s not really unique to them anymore. It’s happening across the country,” Crooms told CNN, pointing to recent immigration policy changes in the US two months into the current administration.
The Gonzalezes spent many years searching for a viable path to citizenship, paid their taxes and never had any trouble with the law, according to Crooms and their daughters.
Ideally, the couple would have been given time to get their affairs in order and say goodbye to their daughters and grandchild, according to Crooms. But that didn’t happen.
“We had to go and pick up their car from the parking lot and didn’t get to say goodbye,” Stephanie said.
I suggest that you research the process of obtaining a green card and, after that, attaining actual citizenship – including all of the rights one is granted in the meantime, before you make any judgment against these people.
What the government is currently doing, is not only expressly and extraordinarily illegal, it is forbidden by international law. And it’s forbidden by international law because of what the fucking Nazis did. And what the Nazis did, the Trump administration is very much trying to do, in full force.
If you have any doubts about this or questions about this, you clearly have an IQ under 20.
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So what should they have done in there intervening 25 years after receiving a voluntary departure order? Just hope it goes away or is never enforced?
At last 25 years, there has been a path of reasonable and legal recourse. Just because you wish to ignore that, doesn’t make it true.
I mean, they exhausted all their options over the last 21 years and were told in 2018 they should get ready to depart. They then stayed another 4 years anyways after they exhausted all their options and knew if it was going to be enforced they were going to be deported.
The only reason they can claim about raising a family is specifically because the system gave them an huge amount of time to sort things out. But that doesn’t mean the time is, or should be, indefinite.
For all the people literally being grabbed off the streets for a traffic ticket or an op ed article, a couple being given 21 years of litigation and almost 40 years of time here to sort out their status before ignoring the unfavorable outcome doesn’t sound like this just dropped out of the sky.
I suggest these two should have done that before coming here illegally.
So, if you get disappeared, should we assume that you deserve it?
Yes, that Snoo tattoo you’ve been trying to cover up is clearly gang insignia
A informative video which I recommend most should watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Hpgu7wSUQQ
Cute, however my mother legally immigrated to the US. I’m eligible for citizenship by descent in the country she came from. I’m not just moving there, I’m applying through proper channels with a formal passport application process. See the difference?
I finally get it. Because you have the privilege to do these things, it’s now okay to drop all humanity and support fascists. I knew there was something missing in my logic.
Yeah, it’s tough for most criminals to follow logic.
Please go away
Okay, so just trying to understand your point here. So question, if a person (or yourself) immigrated legally, and was a green card holder/legal citizen, you are saying they should have nothing to fear as them being deported would never happen?
This article is about a couple who didn’t have any green, gold, platinum or any other card after decades. Even for four years after getting the news. I despise the current administration and hope Cheeto has a debilitating stroke today, but that doesn’t mean I’m for illegal immigration. An no, any green card holder shouldn’t be disappeared nor college students.
Okay, and are you aware of Mahmoud Khalil the Columbia graduate and green-card holder, held in Louisiana by immigration agents.
I wish I could link to the segment on Last Week Tonight but the episode is not available on YouTube yet. I suggest if you have access to watch it
Relevant lines from that episode.
The Trump administration’s controversial arrest and attempt to deport Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil this month prompted a viscerally personal reaction from John Oliver in this week’s monologue for Last Week Tonight.
“Maybe you feel different about the Israel-Palestine conflict than Khalil does. Maybe you don’t agree with the things that I’ve said about it,” Oliver said. “But if someone can be deported as a green card holder for speech in support of Palestine, or anything this administration objects to—that should chill you to the bone.”
Article from the Guardian for more context.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/19/mahmoud-khalil-statement
You’re not getting it. What he’s trying to articulate is that it’s okay that these things are happening, because they are not happening to him.
Question, what problem do illegal immigrants cause in your mind?
Forget the law (much like this administration does frequently) and tell us what problem this crack down is solving? What problem are these people causing, that affects your day to day life?
Criminals don’t have to directly impact you to be against them.
So it doesn’t matter to you that they had zero legal issues until this? Over 25 years, law abiding, tax paying citizens.
Just the fact they’ve been labeled illegal, that’s enough for you to agree with completely ruining their lives and family members lives?
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The United States, starting centuries before it was founded, and continuing for centuries afterward, has been founded on the undebatable strength of industry we have gained from immigration. This entire country is built from immigration – mostly because those who came before committed in massive genocide against the natives of this land.
So when you question the value of any incoming immigrant, just remember that nobody ever had to endure such shitty fascist in dignity until shitty fascists made it a thing.
And, as someone who is continuing the shitty, fascist viewpoint that nearly destroyed the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, you are advocating for that same amount of undemocratic, un-American, absolutely fucking shitty fascist bullshit that, nearly a century ago, we very well knew was shitty, fascist, bullshit that would terror our country apart.
And you are no better, because the only reason you would endorse this shitty, fascist, bullshit is because you are so stupid that you have yet to learn why it is ultimately self-destructive.
Man, this idiot didn’t deserve the amount of thought you put into this reply. 😂
It takes lots of fluff to properly ignore the topic at hand.
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Right, and the court told them nu uh. Dumbass.
Yeah so when you scroll up, you’re going to find words you wrote. They’re wrong. They came here legally.
Oh the part about how they themselves said they were looking to legalize their status?
Nobody is ignoring your Nazi rhetoric. Hence the down votes.
Another criminal huh?
So you are here illegally too then? Or should legal immigration receive the same benefits as illegal?
So you’d be all for seizing businesses and jailing business owners who hire undocumented immigrants? Guess which political party these business owners usually belong to?
You have been fed propaganda to hate undocumented immigrants by the right wing, but those same people want an underclass of vulnerable workers to exploit.
Ask yourself why all of these illegal immigrant chaos never focuses on the businesses hiring them? If you truly wanted to “solve the problem”, then you’d want to cut off the demand.