After 30 years of living in the United States, Jorge Garcia, a 39-year-old landscaper and father of two, was deported on the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday from metro Detroit to Mexico.
Garcia was brought to the United States when he was 10 and is too old to apply for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Emotional video (below) of Garcia hugging his wife and two children at Detroit’s Metro Airport captured the emotional trauma that deportations can cause for families.
It’s a move that supporters say is another example of immigrants being unfairly targeted under the Trump administration as the U.S. is seeking to remove more immigrants.
“I feel kind of sad,” Garcia told the Detroit Free Press. “I got to leave my family behind, knowing that they’re probably going to have a hard time adjusting. Me not being there for them for who knows how long. It’s just hard.”
Garcia has two children – Soleil and Jorge Garcia Jr., 12. The Garcias told The Free Press that their 12-year-old son has been taking the news hard, not expressing himself, which is concerning his parents.
“I’m going to be sad because I’m not going to be able to be with them,” Garcia said at the table of a friend’s home in southwest Detroit during a farewell party for him. “… It’s going to be kind of hard for me to adjust, too. Not being there with them, helping the kids with school stuff. It’s going to be kind of hard. But it’s something, I guess I got to find a way to adjust.”
A spokesman for ICE told the Free Press on Monday that he could not immediately comment since it was a federal holiday, and their offices are closed.
