Our friend's husband was picked up by ICE. They have a 9-month old baby, and he is waiting for his green card. We are raising money for their legal fight ahead to bring him home. Here is her story:

“Hey listen, I’ve been detained at the border. I need you to come get the van.” I thought he was joking. But those two sentences would start one of the last phone conversations I had with my husband before he was taken by ICE at the Customs and Border Patrol checkpoint near Brownsville on the afternoon of Monday, October 20.

My husband has no criminal background. He has lived in this country for fifteen years - almost four of those years as my spouse. Nine and a half months as the father to our daughter, who fortunately is too young to be aware of any of this.

But because neither his asylum application nor his green card application have been finalized, he was picked up from a delivery job in south Texas on the grounds of having “no legal status.” Not from lack of trying, not from lack of applications, not from trying to game the system, but trying to do things THE RIGHT WAY…and getting stuck in the limbo of U.S. Immigration bureaucracy.

My husband just wants to support his family. We wanted my legal right to a spouse’s green card approved. But right now, we just want him home.

We know there are legal battles to be fought in the days ahead. After speaking with a new lawyer, he is optimistic that we can be approved for a bond for release and possibly even get his green card approved at the end of all of this. The bond can run from $1,500 - $7,000, depending on how kind the judge is feeling. The fee for the new lawyer is $5,500. Anything you could contribute to a bond for his release, the new lawyer, even just money for gas or hotel to visit him once we can - anything you can give will help us so much.