Trump voter says deportation crackdown destroyed his family. (Photo by Wayne DeMario / Facebook /Getty Images)
Through tears, a Republican man made a desperate plea to President Donald Trump on Friday: “Please get her home! Please, she does not deserve this. She is the sweetest person, and she prayed for you.”
It has been eight months since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Yamile Alcantu. For her partner of 20 years, Wayne DeMario, the past several months have felt like a blur of fear and frustration.
“They grabbed her, put her in shackles and chains,” DeMario said, adding that after she was “kidnapped,” ICE held her at a detention center in Jacksonville and moved her to Louisiana.
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DeMario owns Wayne’s Guitar World and says he and Alcantu were strong Trump supporters. He never expected to find himself pleading publicly for help from the president he backed.
“I really thought this was just going to be something more organized, but it’s obviously not,” DeMario said about Trump’s deportations. “They just blanket everybody.”
Alcantu moved to the United States from Cuba 25 years ago through the Visa Lottery, a State Department program. According to DeMario, they did not believe her immigration status would ever put her at risk. He voted for Trump believing the system would target serious criminals, not someone like her.
DeMario said Alcantu had a minor run in with the law during a traffic stop years ago. As a result, she received a deportation order in 2008.
“They go through her purse, and then they dump the purse out, and three Xanax pills fall out,” DeMario said.
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Despite that order, Alcantu had been checking in with ICE every year as required. In June, during what was supposed to be a routine check in, she was detained. Now held in Louisiana, Alcantu says she has not appeared before an immigration judge.
Last year, the Trump administration announced Homeland Security’s efforts to terminate the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan parole programs. Meanwhile, conditions in Cuba have worsened. With Nicolás Maduro’s capture on Jan. 3, the flow of oil from Venezuela to Cuba stopped, leading to power outages, water service disruptions, and shortages of basic necessities on the island.
DeMario fears she could be deported back to a country in crisis. He says the emotional toll is matched by financial strain, as attorney fees and detention related costs pile up while Alcantu cannot work.
“She is my fiancé. She is the love of my life. She is my best friend,” DeMario wrote on his GoFundMe fundraising page. “We live together and I want to continue living with her for the rest of our lives.”
