NEW YORK (AP) — A Chinese immigrant with a young American family in New York fears deportation after being arrested when he showed up for a green card interview.
Xiu Qing You, a 39-year-old Queens resident, was being held on June 16 in a New Jersey facility run by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Also being held there is an Ecuadorian pizza shop employee arrested two weeks ago while making a delivery to an Army garrison in Brooklyn.
You applied for asylum after he first arrived in the United States 18 years ago, saying he feared being persecuted for his Catholic faith if he returned to China, according to the New York Daily News. When asylum was denied, he was issued a deportation order in 2002 with which he didn’t comply.
The Trump administration has come down hard on such cases.
At home, You has a 4-year-old son and a 6-year-old daughter born in the United States.
His wife, Yu Mei Chen, an American citizen, told the Daily News that she’s been in touch with her husband by phone, and “I have never seen him cry in my life; he misses the kids so much.’’
You had applied for permanent residency in 2015, and the couple went for an interview on May 23, the day he was arrested.
The couple, who run a nail salon in Connecticut, are represented by the Yee Ling Poon Law Offices in Manhattan. There was no response to calls for comment on June 16. Yee Ling Poon reportedly has asked for a stay of deportation, while also seeking to reopen his asylum claim.
ICE officials also were not immediately available.
The Ecuadorian pizza delivery worker, Pablo Villavicencio, was granted a stay of deportation last week, pending further court proceedings.
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