After 8 long months of uncertainty, fear, confusion, stress, and trauma, Rafael has finally been granted permanent residency, and is now released from ICE custody.
He has been successfully reunited with his children, his mother, his loving wife, and his entire family.
We would like to thank all of you so much for your loving support! We would also like to thank his lawyers who worked tirelessly on his case; they played an essential role in securing his release- we wouldn't have done it without them. We would also like to thank the immigration judge who was assigned to Rafael's case. He immediately understood the depths of the trauma that was inflicted upon Rafael during his valiant fight to preserve democracy in his birth country of Venezuela; providing Rafael with a fair, practical ruling. The judge decided that asylum for Rafael was not good enough for him, and instead, he deserved a permanent witholding of removal, granting him full, permanent residency in the US, for the rest of his life.
We couldn't be more proud of Rafael- with so much psychological pressure they put on detainees to self-deport, he struggled every single day to find the strength to keep fighting. But his faith, and the thought of being reunited with his children again, is what kept him going. And if he can keep going, so can we. As citizens of this country, we need keep fighting to protect our immigrants from persecution and abuse. Every little victory counts!