Summary
Wisconsin resident Bradley Bartell voted for Trump’s promise to crack down on “criminal illegal immigrants,” but now his Peruvian wife Camila Muñoz has been detained by ICE.
Muñoz, from Peru, overstayed her visa but had applied for legal residency. On their way home from a honeymoon, immigration agents detained her at a Puerto Rico airport.
Despite no criminal record, she remains in a Louisiana detention center. Her case reflects ICE’s broadened enforcement that now includes documented immigrants.
Bartell, once supportive of stricter immigration policies, now questions the impact on families like his own.
Being in an international relationship, I’m sure you understand how tricky and stressful some of these paperwork matters can be. Just deciding what type of visa to apply for when you are in a relationship can be taxing.
You are right that for the majority of people, the bureaucracy works as long as you file things correctly. They should have done it right from the start. But there are a lot of personal situations that can complicate it.
As an aside, it is mind boggling to me the number of immigrants who wholeheartedly support Trump, even with family ties that are endangered by his actions.
Warning, essay.
Many many reasons for the immigrants who support him all of them bad reasons obviously.
-White-Passing Hispanics, especially CDMX, Monterey within Mexico and outside, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil (obv. not the darker skinned Brazilians) etc. that can be seen by whites as “the good ones”, and by the Hispanics themselves. These people, the ones who make a point to embrace the “whiteness” of their bloodline, allowing them to identify more with their European colonizers rather than the darker skinned natives, or even Mestizos (mixed race, though at this point most people are decedents of decedents of decedents of the original Mestizos). Their tie to that European “whiteness” somehow makes them better than those darker than themselves.
-Machismo culture being deeply ingrained in many families causing them to “admire” a “strong” man. Not a single macho man is actually macho (except for Macho Man) under Machismo, it is a warped idea of what constitutes macho that idolizes the men and puts them up front as the default lead of any situation especially family just because they are male.
-There is unfortunately, a STRONG sense of “I got mine” or pulling the ladder up behind you among many many immigrants, Hispanic or otherwise. This goes along with the sense of “well we did it so it can’t be that hard”, they fail to realize that yes, it may have been easy for you but for others it is not.
-Last I can think of, the kids and grand-kids of immigrants. Many did not get taught about the struggles of their ancestors, or were taught and don’t care, sometimes you just get a bad egg kids who doesn’t give a shit about his heritage. Sometimes this comes from their feeling like an “other” when living in an area with a Hispanic minority. This can cause them to seek out belonging and feel resentment to their ancestors and heritage for bringing them there, for making them into a minority and grow some unhealthy selfhate, and then falling in with like minds who also hate the “others” making them into “one of the good ones.” (ive types this term too many times today)