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On Sept. 16, Barbara Gomes Marques Might and her husband arrived on the downtown Los Angeles federal immigration constructing for what they believed can be the ultimate step in Marques Might’s course of to acquire her inexperienced card.
The interview course of had gone easily, Tucker Might recalled. However towards the tip, a federal immigration official she had met with stated he wanted Marques Might to comply with him so he might photocopy her passport, he recalled. She and her husband believed the journey can be temporary and they’d be capable of go away.
As a substitute, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent arrested Marques Might, a 38-year-old Brazilian nationwide who has no felony file and works as a movie director in Los Angeles. She was handcuffed and transferred to the ICE facility in Adelanto in San Bernardino County earlier than being despatched to Louisiana. In the meantime, her husband and her lawyer scrambled to attempt to cease her deportation.
On Wednesday, Marques Might was scheduled to board a 6 a.m. flight to her residence nation, however her legal professional was capable of file a movement to reopen her deportation proceedings and maintain her on U.S. soil, a minimum of quickly. As of Thursday, she had been moved to Arizona and can return to California whereas her deportation proceedings stay open, her legal professional stated.
“It’s very a lot an ongoing nightmare,” Tucker Might stated in an interview this week.
Division of Homeland Safety officers didn’t reply to a request for remark about Marques Might’s case.
In response to her legal professional, Marcelo Gondim, Marques Might arrived within the U.S. in 2018 on a vacationer visa. Gondim stated she utilized for an extension however was denied. She ended up overstaying her visa, he stated, and in 2019, the federal government despatched her a discover to seem for a court docket listening to to start deportation proceedings.
However Marques Might had moved and had not stored her deal with updated with immigration court docket, and so the letter by no means reached her, Gondim stated. As a result of she failed to seem, the federal government issued a removing order in opposition to her.
In April 2025, the couple acquired married and he or she started the method to use for a inexperienced card, Gondim stated. Below the Biden administration, he stated, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers would have notified Marques Might that there was a removing order issued for her and directed her on the way to get it resolved.
Overstaying a visa just isn’t thought-about a felony offense, and penalties are issued if the particular person leaves the nation. In instances involving married {couples}, Gondim stated, there’s an computerized forgiveness for overstaying a visa, aid that Marques Might would’ve been eligible for.
However the Trump administration has as a substitute used courthouses and Citizenship and Immigration Providers workplaces to interact in mass arrests of migrants attending mandated hearings and appointments. Quickly, the USCIS can have expanded powers.
In September, the Division of Homeland Safety issued a brand new directive that may permit the company — which administers and oversees immigration purposes — to implement immigration legislation with “particular brokers.” The order goes into impact Monday.
“USCIS can have better capability to assist DHS efforts by dealing with investigations from begin to end, as a substitute of referring sure instances to Homeland Safety Investigation inside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” the company stated in an announcement.
After Marques Might was arrested, Might struggled to determine the place federal authorities had despatched his spouse. Lastly, he was capable of get in contact along with her, and he or she detailed how, when she was arrested in L.A., she burst into tears, and an ICE agent took a selfie along with her, he stated.
Throughout her switch between detention services, she informed him, she was subjected to harsh circumstances, together with how she went with out meals or water for greater than 12 hours and had entry to bogs with no bathroom paper. She was given solely bread and water and a few instances an apple.
Marques Might, who had surgical procedure this 12 months for persistent again issues, was additionally denied medical remedy for a tool she makes use of to handle her ache, he stated. Might went public along with her arrest greater than every week after she was detained, he stated, as a result of he had run out of all authorized avenues.
“There’s an open disdain being proven by ICE for the essential rule of legislation for this nation,” he stated.
Might started posting about her arrest on-line, garnering tons of of responses and assist. A GoFundMe web page had raised greater than $50,000 as of Thursday. U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), who counts Marques Might as considered one of her constituents, stated she was “doing every thing potential to forestall her deportation and I’m demanding that ICE comply with the legislation.”
“Sadly, Barbara’s case just isn’t distinctive, it displays a broader sample below Trump’s immigration insurance policies which might be illegal and merciless,” she posted on X.
Gondim stated he repeatedly tried to cease her from being transferred to services outdoors California, solely to search out boundaries and delays by ICE officers to getting authorized paperwork for her to signal. From Adelanto, she was transferred to Arizona, then Louisiana.
The federal government just isn’t doing something mistaken by complying with the removing order, he stated, “however they can’t stop the particular person from accessing counsel and be capable of current their case to file some type of aid [so they] don’t get unjustly deported.”
To cease Marques Might’s imminent deportation, Gondim filed separate motions to reopen her deportation proceedings and terminate her deportation proceedings. Till a choose guidelines on the case, Gondim stated, ICE can’t deport her. He stated he’s hopeful that she is going to find yourself being launched.
“Since she has already an authorised petition from her U.S. citizen husband, and he or she has a transparent path to submitting a brand new [application] and getting her inexperienced card,” he stated, an immigration court docket choose is not going to be serious about pursuing a case in opposition to an individual who must be authorised for everlasting residency by legislation.
Till then, Might stated his spouse’s first characteristic movie has been placed on maintain till she could be launched. In 2021, Marques Might premiered her brief movie, “Pretas,” on the Culver Theater for the L.A. Brazilian Movie Pageant. The movie facilities on Black girls and their experiences coping with racism and carries a message of making a extra anti-racist society.
“I like Los Angeles a lot,” she stated in an interview on the time. “I couldn’t be happier. It was a premiere I wasn’t anticipating.”
It was their shared love of movies that bonded the couple, who met on a relationship app, Might stated. They spent a variety of their time collectively watching motion pictures, sharing popcorn after which discussing what labored and didn’t within the movies.
Might says he now thinks about all of the immigrants who haven’t dedicated any crimes however lack the authorized sources to keep away from deportation.
“These are human beings that these horrible issues are taking place to,” he stated. “If anyone reads tales like this, in the event that they suppose this doesn’t apply to them as a result of they’re not married to an immigrant, I encourage these folks to think about what they suppose comes subsequent.”
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