On Sept. 16, Barbara Gomes Marques Could and her husband arrived on the downtown Los Angeles federal immigration constructing for what they believed could be the ultimate step in Marques Could’s course of to acquire her inexperienced card.
The interview course of had gone easily, Tucker Could recalled. However towards the tip, a federal immigration official she had met with mentioned he wanted Marques Could to comply with him so he might photocopy her passport, he recalled. She and her husband believed the journey could be temporary and they might be capable of go away.
As a substitute, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent arrested Marques Could, a 38-year-old Brazilian nationwide who has no legal document and works as a movie director in Los Angeles. She was handcuffed and transferred to the ICE facility in Adelanto in San Bernardino County earlier than being despatched to Louisiana. In the meantime, her husband and her lawyer scrambled to attempt to cease her deportation.
On Wednesday, Marques Could was scheduled to board a 6 a.m. flight to her dwelling nation, however her legal professional was capable of file a movement to reopen her deportation proceedings and hold her on U.S. soil, at the very least briefly. As of Thursday, she had been moved to Arizona and can return to California whereas her deportation proceedings stay open, her legal professional mentioned.
“It’s very a lot an ongoing nightmare,” Tucker Could mentioned in an interview this week.
Division of Homeland Safety officers didn’t reply to a request for remark about Marques Could’s case.
In keeping with her legal professional, Marcelo Gondim, Marques Could arrived within the U.S. in 2018 on a vacationer visa. Gondim mentioned she utilized for an extension however was denied. She ended up overstaying her visa, he mentioned, and in 2019, the federal government despatched her a discover to look for a courtroom listening to to start deportation proceedings.
However Marques Could had moved and had not saved her deal with updated with immigration courtroom, and so the letter by no means reached her, Gondim mentioned. As a result of she failed to look, the federal government issued a elimination order in opposition to her.
In April 2025, the couple received married and he or she started the method to use for a inexperienced card, Gondim mentioned. Underneath the Biden administration, he mentioned, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Companies would have notified Marques Could that there was a elimination order issued for her and directed her on the way to get it resolved.
Overstaying a visa is just not thought-about a legal offense, and penalties are issued if the individual leaves the nation. In instances involving married {couples}, Gondim mentioned, there’s an automated forgiveness for overstaying a visa, reduction that Marques Could would’ve been eligible for.
However the Trump administration has as an alternative used courthouses and Citizenship and Immigration Companies workplaces to interact in mass arrests of migrants attending mandated hearings and appointments. Quickly, the USCIS may have expanded powers.
In September, the Division of Homeland Safety issued a brand new directive that may permit the company — which administers and oversees immigration purposes — to implement immigration legislation with “particular brokers.” The order goes into impact Monday.
“USCIS may have better capability to assist DHS efforts by dealing with investigations from begin to end, as an alternative of referring sure instances to Homeland Safety Investigation inside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” the company mentioned in a press release.
After Marques Could was arrested, Could struggled to determine the place federal authorities had despatched his spouse. Lastly, he was capable of get in contact together with her, and he or she detailed how, when she was arrested in L.A., she burst into tears, and an ICE agent took a selfie together with her, he mentioned.
Throughout her switch between detention amenities, she informed him, she was subjected to harsh circumstances, together with how she went with out meals or water for greater than 12 hours and had entry to bogs with no bathroom paper. She was given solely bread and water and a few occasions an apple.
Marques Could, who had surgical procedure this 12 months for persistent again issues, was additionally denied medical remedy for a tool she makes use of to handle her ache, he mentioned. Could went public together with her arrest greater than per week after she was detained, he mentioned, as a result of he had run out of all authorized avenues.
“There may be an open disdain being proven by ICE for the essential rule of legislation for this nation,” he mentioned.
Could started posting about her arrest on-line, garnering a whole lot of responses and assist. A GoFundMe web page had raised greater than $50,000 as of Thursday. U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), who counts Marques Could as considered one of her constituents, mentioned she was “doing the whole lot attainable to stop her deportation and I’m demanding that ICE comply with the legislation.”
“Sadly, Barbara’s case is just not distinctive, it displays a broader sample underneath Trump’s immigration insurance policies which might be illegal and merciless,” she posted on X.
Gondim mentioned he repeatedly tried to cease her from being transferred to amenities exterior California, solely to search out boundaries and delays by ICE officers to getting authorized paperwork for her to signal. From Adelanto, she was transferred to Arizona, then Louisiana.
The federal government is just not doing something mistaken by complying with the elimination order, he mentioned, “however they can’t forestall the individual from gaining access to counsel and be capable of current their case to file some type of reduction [so they] don’t get unjustly deported.”
To cease Marques Could’s imminent deportation, Gondim filed separate motions to reopen her deportation proceedings and terminate her deportation proceedings. Till a decide guidelines on the case, Gondim mentioned, ICE can not deport her. He mentioned he’s hopeful that she’s going to find yourself being launched.
“Since she has already an accredited petition from her U.S. citizen husband, and he or she has a transparent path to submitting a brand new [application] and getting her inexperienced card,” he mentioned, an immigration courtroom decide won’t be taken with pursuing a case in opposition to an individual who ought to be accredited for everlasting residency by legislation.
Till then, Could mentioned his spouse’s first characteristic movie has been placed on maintain till she might be launched. In 2021, Marques Could premiered her quick movie, “Pretas,” on the Culver Theater for the L.A. Brazilian Movie Competition. The movie facilities on Black girls and their experiences coping with racism and carries a message of making a extra anti-racist society.
“I really like Los Angeles a lot,” she mentioned in an interview on the time. “I couldn’t be happier. It was a premiere I wasn’t anticipating.”
It was their shared love of movies that bonded the couple, who met on a relationship app, Could mentioned. They spent loads of their time collectively watching films, sharing popcorn after which discussing what labored and didn’t within the movies.
Could says he now thinks about all of the immigrants who haven’t dedicated any crimes however lack the authorized sources to keep away from deportation.
“These are human beings that these horrible issues are occurring to,” he mentioned. “If anyone reads tales like this, in the event that they suppose this doesn’t apply to them as a result of they’re not married to an immigrant, I encourage these individuals to contemplate what they suppose comes subsequent.”
