Yale Senior Tells Heartbreaking Story of Accidentally Turning Her Dad in to ICE

Welcome to WHAT NOW, a morning round-up of the news/fresh horrors that await you today.

In a heart wrenching op-ed published Tuesday night by The New York Times, a fourth-year student at Yale detailed how, by petitioning federal authorities to change her undocumented dad’s immigration status, she unknowingly put him on the path to deportation.

Viviana Andazola Marquez wrote that she looked forward to her 21st birthday as the day she could finally petition the government to make her father Melecio a permanent legal resident, in hopes that he would no longer live in constant fear of “la migra.”

Instead, when father and daughter went into a Colorado Citizenship and Immigration Services office for a routine visit earlier this month—which Marquez says he was told would be his final interview before being approved for legal residency—he was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Marquez told ThinkProgress that ICE agents even shoved her father’s lawyer and interpreter out of the room while they detained him. It’s part of a disturbing pattern of ICE arrests at green card hearings.

The Times column captures the agony of a family that now caught in the immigration crackdown mandated by President Trump, which is “pulling families apart”:

My dad wanted to follow the rules. He has been trying to adjust his status with the help of relatives since 2001. We filed the correct paperwork, paid the fees and lined up all his references, only for my dad to be dragged out of a little office and locked up. ICE could have chosen to grant my dad his residency, per the suggestion of our immigration officer. Instead, my father, a man who has filed his taxes every year, has no criminal record and is the sole provider for four children, wasn’t even put out on monitor or bond.

Now Marquez’s father, who raised four children on a construction worker’s salary and been in the country since 1998, is in ICE custody at a detention center in Aurora, CO. Unless ICE cancels his removal order, he faces deportation.

I have reached out to ICE for comment and will update this story if I hear back.

WHAT ELSE?

• Former Senator Scott Brown, the triathlon enthusiast who’s now the Trump administration’s ambassador to New Zealand, confirmed he’s under investigation by the State Department for culturally insensitive comments made during a recent trip to Samoa’s capital city. According to The Guardian US, Brown told guests at a party that they were “beautiful” and that they could make hundreds of dollars working in the American hospitality industry.
• Hillary Clinton’s campaign, along with the Democratic National Committee, funded research that resulted in the infamous pee tape dossier about President Donald Trump, The Washington Post reported. Money well spent!
• House Speaker Paul Ryan privately told a group of conservatives on Tuesday that he plans to tie a legislative fix to save Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to a year-end spending bill.

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