Right now, the family of a Cuban immigrant doesn’t know what will happen next, as he sits in an ICE facility.
Yandy Gomez Rodriguez was detained when he showed up to his ICE appointment in downtown New Orleans.
It comes at a time that the federal government is cracking down on illegal immigration. But Yandy’s wife and attorney argue that he has really been trying to do everything right.
“We’ve reached a dead end where we don’t know where else to turn, because at this point I can’t say for sure what’s going to happen to him,” said Robert W. Goeke, with Casey Cowley attorneys.
Goeke says the Kenner resident has been in ICE custody for more than a month now, since May 16th.
“He was scheduled to show up to ICE on the sixteenth of May, he showed up to that appointment, as he had done close 10 times in the past, and ICE chose to take him in,” Goeke said.
Goeke says 8 years prior, Yandy arrived at the border. He’s since married a US citizen, who applied to get him legal status, and together they have a two-year-old daughter.
Yandy has no criminal record, per his attorney, and worked in the heating and AC business.
“My daughter is asking all the time, when is my daddy coming, or when she’s talking to him, she says, ‘oh come on daddy, come on, come take me,’ or things like that,” said his wife, Dianna Heredia.
Heredia is able to keep in touch with her husband through phone and video calls and occasional visits to the Jena facility he’s in, but she’s fighting right now to bring him home.
“I tell him, the only thing that can make me feel happy right now is you to be released and hug you, that’s the only thing that makes me calm,” she said.
READ MORE:Kenner-based Cuban-born man detained at scheduled ICE appointment
