Similar ICE Green Card Interview Arrest Cases
ICE green card interview arrest concerns are growing after a Korean man in his 40s was detained by immigration agents in Texas while attending a marriage-based green card interview.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the man had been ordered deported after failing to appear for an immigration court hearing. His family, however, says he was never notified that a hearing had been scheduled.
According to Korean-language media outlet Koreatown News, or KTN, the man, identified as Jihoon Yang, worked as a golf instructor in Lewisville, Texas. He visited a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Irving with his attorney on Sept. 8 for an interview related to his marriage-based green card application.
Local Korean-language broadcaster DKnet Radio identified his wife as Jennifer Oh.
Oh told KTN that her husband was in the middle of his interview when two ICE agents entered the room.
“Two ICE agents came in while my husband’s interview was underway and did not present an arrest warrant,” Oh said. “They only verbally said he was being arrested for failing to comply with a deportation order. My husband isn’t fluent in English, so he couldn’t properly challenge what was happening before they took him away.”
Family Disputes ICE Account
ICE maintains that Yang failed to appear for an immigration court hearing and received an in absentia removal order on Aug. 31. Such an order can be issued when an immigration judge orders a person removed in their absence after they fail to appear for a scheduled hearing.
Oh, however, says neither she nor her husband knew a hearing had been scheduled.
After the arrest, Oh spoke with an official at the detention facility who told her that notice of the court hearing had been personally served on Yang.
Oh disputes that account. “We never received an email, letter, phone call or in-person notice,” she said. “Even when ICE agents arrested him, they only said he had failed to comply with a deportation order. They didn’t say anything about him having received notice in person.”
Yang had been undocumented before his marriage but later applied for permanent residency through his marriage and had been going through the immigration process, according to KTN.
His family has since retained a new immigration attorney and is reviewing possible legal options.
Oh said one option being considered is for Yang to voluntarily return to South Korea and then seek a waiver of the reentry bar before attempting to return to the United States.
“We’re trying everything we can to get my husband out as soon as possible,” she said.
Yang is currently being held at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. The Dallas office of the Consulate General of South Korea in Houston is also reportedly looking into the case.
The ICE green card interview arrest is the latest in a series of cases involving Korean immigrants detained while appearing for green card interviews.
In June, a Korean woman in her 70s from the Gardena area was arrested by immigration authorities during a green card interview and remained in immigration detention for more than two months.
In another case last October, a Korean man attending a marriage-based green card interview at a USCIS office in downtown Los Angeles was arrested by ICE because of a previous removal order issued after he failed to appear for an immigration court hearing.
The cases are fueling anxiety in Korean immigrant communities as people pursuing legal immigration benefits face the possibility of detention when appearing for scheduled USCIS appointments.
