A father who was brought to the United States 29 years ago when he was 10 has been deported because he is too old for DACA.
Jorge Garcia tearfully waved goodbye to his family in Detroit on Monday after months of dread.
The 39-year-old was solemn and silent as he held his wife Cindy and their two children, who are 12 and 15, staring straight ahead as they wept into his arms.
For years, the family has been trying to find a way to keep him in the country despite President Trump’s strict new immigration laws.
Jorge Garcia is pictured hugging his wife Cindy, his 15-year-old daughter and his 12-year-old son before being boarding his flight to Mexico on Monday at Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport
Garcia, who worked as a gardener, has no criminal record and has been in the country since he was brought by a relative aged 10.
His wife is an American citizen and their children are too.
He lived quietly in the US until 2005 when he and his wife began the process to try to win him legal status.
They however alerted themselves to ICE in the process and in 2009, Garcia was told to expect deportation.
The Obama administration granted the family several stays to allow them more time together to work out a permanent solution.
In November this year however, ICE agents told the father-of-two he would have to leave.
They allowed him to spend a final Christmas with his family before ordering him back to his native Mexico.
Garcia has been in the United States since he was 10. He was brought in by a relative and lived under the radar until 2005, when he applied for legal status
On Monday, the man’s devastated wife Cindy filmed him as he spent some final moments with his children. They do not know when they will see each other again
Cindy Garcia was inconsolable after watching her husband go through the security gates towards the gate where he would board his flight
Garcia and his wife Cindy are seen above with their two children. She and the children are US citizens but he has never been given legal status despite growing up in America from the age of 10
Had Garcia been a few years younger, he would have been eligible to apply for DACA, Obama’s Deferred Action for Child Aliens.
Its rules allow anyone who was under the age of 31 on June 15 2012 to ask for permanent legal status. Garcia was 32.
As she spent her final minutes with her husband on Monday, the man’s wife blamed her heartache on President Trump.
‘You have destroyed my life. There’s nothing I can do about it.
‘We get a new president and this is what he does, tears my family apart. I hope everybody is happy.
Garcia has worked as a landscape gardener in the past. He has no criminal record and his family says he deserves to stay in the country he has called home for the last 29 years
Cindy Garcia say she and her children will now have to go to Mexico if they want to see her husband, claiming he has been given a 10 year ban from entering the country
‘Look what it’s doing my children.
‘These are the last 15 minutes of my husband’s time with his kids,’ she said as she filmed Jorge with his arms around their 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son.
She has described the family’s scenario as a ‘nightmare’.
On Monday, protesters joined the family at the airport with scenes which read: ‘Stop tearing families apart’.
Garcia was escorted through the checkout desk by two ICE agents.
The agency did not respond to inquiries about Garcia’s case on Tuesday.
The man’s wife claims he is now subject to a 10 year ban on entering the US at all.
The family was joined at the airport by protesters who carried signs which read: ‘Stop separating families’