A single father caring for six American-born children found himself deported due to a policy shift under the Trump administration.
In September, Rosalio Vasquez Meave was apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement just after he had dropped his children off at school in Oklahoma, as reported by The Dallas Morning News.
Having spent 34 years residing in the U.S., Vasquez Meave was the sole guardian for his children, all under 16. He reportedly attempted to convey his situation to the ICE officers, but he alleged that they were indifferent to his plea.
On November 24, Vasquez Meave was sent back to Mexico, where he has since been residing in the border town of Matamoros, located just below Texas’s southern tip.
Separated from his children for nearly three months, the family finally reunited in Mexico in early December.
Despite his ongoing application for a visa under the Violence Against Women Act, Vasquez Meave’s deportation proceeded.
This kind of visa allows illegal immigrants who have been the victims of domestic violence by a US citizen partner – man or women – to become a lawful permanent resident.
Vasquez Meave applied for the visa because of problems he had with his ex-wife, whom he divorced four years ago.
Rosalio Vasquez Meave (top right) pictured with his family and friends. He was deported last month despite the fact that he had applied for a special visa in 2023 with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
Vasquez Meave, who was arrested in September, spent nearly three months separated from his six children. He is their sole caretaker since he divorced his wife four years ago. He was applying for a visa under the Violence Against Women Act, which gives illegal immigrants an opportunity to obtain a green card if they were victims of domestic violence
He applied for the visa in 2023 with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which determined that his application was credible and met the basic requirements.
Therefore, the agency granted him a work permit while his application was pending. This decision was upheld in 2024 and again in April.
In February, President Donald Trump scrapped a Biden-era policy from 2021 that instructed ICE to use prosecutorial discretion when considering deporting individuals who have applications under VAWA and other victim-based laws.
‘When encountering an alien during a civil immigration enforcement action who is not known to be an approved beneficiary of victim-based immigration benefits or to have applied or petitioned for such benefits, ICE officers and agents are not required to affirmatively seek to identify indicia or evidence suggesting an alien is a victim of a crime or consider such evidence as a positive discretionary factor in determining whether to take civil immigration enforcement action,’ stated the memo to all ICE agents.
‘ICE will no longer routinely request expedited adjudications from USCIS. ICE officers and agents may continue to do so subject to a case-by-case determination that it is in ICE’s best interests,’ it continued.
The decision to rescind President Joe Biden’s earlier guidance means that the more than 100,000 people who still have pending VAWA applications could be more vulnerable to arrest and deportation.
Michelle Edstrom, Vasquez Meave’s attorney, told The Dallas Morning News that his removal from the country shows that the Trump administration want to deport as many people as possible.
‘They’re just going after anybody and everybody is what I see, no matter if they have applications pending or not,’ she said.
Pictured: A man is detained by ICE agents outside an apartment complex in Denver, Colorado
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said that pending applications under VAWA ‘do not confer legal status’ and added that Vasquez Meave ‘has received full due process’.
Vasquez Meave had already been in the US illegally for about nine years in 2000, when he had to go home to Mexico for a death in his family.
He was 23 years old then, and after he done with his business, he attempted to re-enter the US with a fraudulent green card. He was arrested at the port of entry and was sent back to Mexico the same day.
Vasquez Meave claims he didn’t realize the green card was not legitimate and says he was scammed out of $600. Several months later, he crossed the border illegally.
He went back to Oklahoma, where he spent the next 25 years working as a contractor. He eventually started his own business that did roofing and painting.
During that time, he married and had his children. His wife had substance abuse issues and he filed for divorce 11 years after their marriage. Court records show he was awarded full custody of his children.
Two years after winning the custody battle, he applied for the VAWA visa. Wait times for cases like these are more than three years, according to a USCIS report in July.
That suggests that Vasquez Meave could have been approved sometime next year, given that he applied in 2023.
