Juan Carlos Fomperosa García planned to celebrate his son’s 17th birthday on Thursday. But first, he had to go in for a meeting around 9am with immigration officials in Phoenix for what he believed was to discuss his request for asylum. “He walked in. An hour later, they brought me a bag with his stuff and that was it,” said Yennifer Sanchez, Fomperosa García’s 23-year-old daughter. 'Over my dead body': tribe aims to block Trump's border wall on Arizona land Read more The single father of three US citizens, who entered the country 20 years ago, was detained after meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, but never came out, his daughter said, adding that she thought he was safe because he had a work permit. By Friday morning, Fomperosa García had called his children to let them know he had been deported to Mexico. Now, Sanchez has become the sole guardian of her 17-year-old brother and 14-year-old sister. She said she plans to continue working as a caregiver and, with the “moral support” of her father, care for her siblings.

1. Single father from Mexico in
US for 20 years deported after
Ice 'check-in'
Undocumented immigrants with any type of criminal
charges, such as Juan Carlos Fomperosa García, are
now a priority for deportation under Trump’s order
Yennifer Sanchez, 23, and Karla Fomperosa, 14, daughters of Juan Carlos
Fomperosa García. Photograph: Griselda Nevarez for the Guardian

2. Juan Carlos Fomperosa García planned to celebrate his
son’s 17th birthday on Thursday. But first, he had to go
in for a meeting around 9am with immigration officials
in Phoenix for what he believed was to discuss his
request for asylum.
“He walked in. An hour later, they brought me a bag with
his stuff and that was it,” said Yennifer Sanchez,
Fomperosa García’s 23-year-old daughter.
The single father of three US citizens, who entered the
country 20 years ago, was detained after meeting with
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, but
never came out, his daughter said, adding that she
thought he was safe because he had a work permit.
By Friday morning, Fomperosa García had called his
children to let them know he had been deported
to Mexico.
Now, Sanchez has become the sole guardian of her 17-
year-old brother and 14-year-old sister. She said she

3. plans to continue working as a caregiver and, with the
“moral support” of her father, care for her siblings.
“They are going to keep going to school,” Sanchez said of
her siblings. “I’m going to work. We’re going to try to get
through this.”
To help the family financially, a local organization
started fundraising money online. They raised more
than $1,300 in less than three hours.
Ayensa Millan, a Phoenix-based immigration attorney
who was contacted by Fomperosa García’s family on
Thursday, said she wasn’t sure why Fomperosa García
had the check-in with Ice officials. She said his asylum
request had already been denied “so there was no reason
for them to interview him for an asylum claim”.
“It sounds to me like they literally just called him to
remove him because of his prior removal order,” Millan
said.
In a statement, Ice confirmed Fomperosa García had
been deported and that he had been “previously
repatriated to Mexico three times, including a formal
deportation in 2014”. Last year, he was again ordered
removed by an immigration judge and in 2015 was
convicted of a federal misdemeanor charge, according to
Ice.
“Ice will continue to focus on identifying and removing
individuals with criminal convictions who have final

4. orders of removal issued by the nation’s immigration
courts,” the statement said.
Fomperosa García’s deportation comes a few weeks after
the deportation of Guadalupe García de Rayos, a mother
of two US citizens who lived in Arizona for more than
two decades. She was also deported after she went in for
a check-in with Ice.
But under a new executive order that Donald Trump
signed on 25 January, García de Rayos became a priority
for deportation. The order states that undocumented
immigrants should be deported if they have been
charged with any criminal offense. The president said
the order was needed “to ensure the public safety of the
American people”.
Millan said her advice to undocumented immigrants,
especially those with no serious criminal records, is “to
not be fearful and to pay close attention to what’s going
on”. She noted that most undocumented immigrants
who’ve been deported recently had prior orders of
removal or had already been found by an immigration
judge to not have strong enough merits to be granted a
stay in the US.
For undocumented immigrants who’ve become a
priority for deportation under Trump’s new executive
order and have pending check-ins with Ice, Millan said
she advises them to be prepared and get an immigration
attorney. Another option is to seek sanctuary at a
church.

5. Arizona woman deported to Mexico
despite complying with
immigration officials
“I always leave it up my clients’ discretion and tell them
these are the immigration consequences,” Millan said. “I
tell them, ‘If you are going to stay there and go for the
long haul, by all means, do it.’ But it’s up to them
because, when people go into sanctuary places, you
never know how long they’re going to be there.”
With tears in her eyes, Sanchez said on Friday that her
father was nothing like the type of people Trump alludes
to when he talks about deporting undocumented
immigrants with criminal records.

6. “When you image people breaking the law, you imagine
a scary person,” she said. “You imagine someone who
doesn’t care for anyone else. When I hear those words
being said about my dad and seeing what type of person
he is, it hurts. Criminal would never be a way that I
would describe my father.”
Instead, Sanchez said she would use words like
“goofball” and “caring” to describe her father, adding
that he liked to watch movies, listen to zumba music,
dance and make people laugh.
“I know that if he was sitting right here right now, he
would be making everyone crack up,” she said.
 This article was amended on 4 March 2017 to show
Yennifer Sanchez is caring for her two siblings, not
daughter and son as previously stated.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/04/single-father-mexico-deported-ice-check-
in-arizona-phoenix