Sidney Henry Zelaya Múñoz, they called him crazy and laughed at him, when deported in El Salvador, he talked that he was going to return to the United States, almost a year after his deportation, he achieved what he himself many times believed impossible, to return to meet his wife and daughter.
“My lawyer and my wife always asked me to keep faith and hope,” he says happily.
Sidney Henry’s immigration nightmare began on 27 February last year, when at five in the morning was detained by agents of the Immigration and Customs Service (ICE), outside his home in Anaheim, when he was preparing to go to his job as an electrician.
“About three days before, under the pretext of that my car was stolen, an ICE agent had already stopped me on the road, but I didn’t want to get out of the car ”, he recalls.
When they arrested him and they did an express deportation to him Salvador says he was frustrated. “All I thought was that I had lost my family. I arrived in El Salvador penniless. I had no one to support me. It was very hard. ”
From 42 years old, Sidney Henry had more than 15 years of having emigrated from El Salvador to the United States when he was arrested for ICE. On 19 November 2005, had made the mistake of not appearing in immigration court, which resulted in a deportation order, explains his immigration attorney, Frances Arroyo.
He says that when ICE arrested Sidney Henry, desperate, his wife went to see her because several lawyers had refused to treat her. His office immediately filed a motion to reopen his case before an immigration judge and prevent his deportation.
“The motion was approved by the immigration judge on March 9, 2020, but our celebration did not last long when we learned that the next day, ICE had put him on a plane bound for El Salvador, knowing that we had won and it was illegal to deport him. ”
Sidney Henry returned to El Salvador a few days after the COVID pandemic broke out – 19 in the United States and that the world would change forever. “The consulates in El Salvador closed completely, and he was unjustly trapped for almost a year, even when ICE admitted that his deportation was inappropriate,” says attorney Arroyo.
However, After months of fighting for the Salvadoran’s return to the country, the lawyer got his return. “ They returned it on 24, but in Instead of letting him enjoy Christmas with his family, he was detained again amid the largest rebound in COVID cases in California . ”
Sidney Henry remembers that he was happy on the plane. What he never imagined is that upon his arrival, immigration officials would be waiting for him to lock him up again. When the ICE agents, they took him handcuffed through the corridors of the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), he ran into his wife and they barely managed to hug and kiss through tears, while being rushed by the officers.
Those days in ICE custody led to depression and health problems. “I couldn’t even go to the bathroom. The stress affected my intestines. He was traumatized. ”
After an uphill battle with ICE, during a belligerent hearing, he was released after posting a $ 5 bond, 000 on Wednesday, February 5.
“His return has been a miracle because fighting a deportation does not It is easy, and less when you are in front of a tyrant government such as that of Trump. But we had the evidence that it was a violation of the law; and we warned ICE that if they did not return him, we would sue. ”
Once he was reunited with his wife, the lawyer explains that they will go to trial before an immigration judge to request the residence of Sidney Henry, on the basis that his wife is a citizen, and that the re-entry to the country was through a legal entry .
“The world came over me when they arrested and deported Sidney. I felt very sad and distressed. I found myself alone without support. Everything breaks when there is a separation in the family. I do not wish anyone to live that experience ”, says Aída.
“ When they detained him, we took two years of marriage; and when they returned him they sent him to the Imperial Regional Center in San Diego where he was 45 day s. Due to COVID, I could not visit him, but we spoke every day on the phone. It was the only way to keep him in sanity in that dangerous confinement. ”
When they met last week, Aida and Sidney Henry cried like children. “I have spent the entire pandemic crying for his deportation, but now the tears were of joy for being together. Although they called us crazy, and told us that my husband would never return, that he was already deported, we succeeded and we are happy. ”
Sidney says that his priority is to fix his immigration status, enjoy more his wife and their 8-year-old daughter whom he had in a previous marriage. “Maybe there are more people who are going through the same thing as me. I ask you to have faith, but also to look for a good lawyer. ”
