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.
They couldn’t get citizenship during all those 35 years?
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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?
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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.
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I suggest these two should have done that before coming here illegally.
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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.
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Another criminal huh?
So you are here illegally too then? Or should legal immigration receive the same benefits as illegal?
What do illegal jmmigrants do to you? Seriously ask yourself what the impact of these people existing is on your daily life. The folks in this article specifically, came here, got jobs, paid taxes on their wages, and took those wages and contributed to their local economy. How is that any different than me just because I was born here?
They’re willing to do jobs we aren’t because they don’t grow up with the quality of life and/or safety we were lucky enough to get handed just for popping out in the right place. Despite what you’ve been told they commonly are subject to payroll tax. Most of them are desperately trying to obtain paperwork, but our government says no over and over again. The fucking melting pot, right?
You’ve been propagandized to think immigrants did something to you. They didn’t. The end game is going to be you and I shooting at each other in a civil war because the rich people said immigrants are bad. Please wake up. Please everybody wake up.
My problem with illegal immigrants is that they exist in the first place.
If you want to come here, work, and contribute to society, then why the fuck shouldn’t you be let in?
So you’re 100% in support of jailing business owners who hire illegal immigrants, right? After all, to truly solve the supply problem, you need to end demand.
I am. No one should be able to pay employees under minimum wage (which needs to be increased).
Yup - business owners who knowingly employ undocumented migrants should face severe penalties. The state should straight up seize their businesses and throw them in jail for at least a decade.
Immigrants who are in the country illegally:
And the positive side:
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Yup - immigrants who come to the country legally don’t cause all those problems.
So what do you propose? To give legal permanent resident status to everyone who shows up at the border?
To abolish all visa policies and let everyone in?
Or maybe they pay more taxes because they may get taxes withheld from their pay but can’t file for a refund without risking their freedom.
Or maybe the US should support human rights by not involving immigration where it doesn’t belong. We want all people here to have healthcare and car insurance and job safety and at least a minimum wage, and wtf does immigration status have to do with any of that? By tying those together you’re not only making government more complicated but you’re in collusion with exploitive companies in creating an underclass class of people with limited human rights who can be exploited at will
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.
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.
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I’m not surprised. I have no idea what their specific situation was, but I’ve known a couple people going through the green card process. And each was its own brand of long, painful, and expensive.
You forgot to insult the commenter asking the question.
Dumbass
I’m not sure it would have mattered.
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That was my question too. Did they get denaturalize?