They voted for Trump and now their son is in ICE detention

Verdi and Rey drove nine hours from their home in North Carolina to see their son, Agustin Gentile, who is being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Stewart. They sat on El Refugio’s back porch while waiting for their visitation appointment.

“But he didn’t say he was going to do this, that he was going to go after people who have been here for a long time,” Rey said. “He said he was going to go after all the criminals who came illegally.

“We feel betrayed, tricked. This is craziness”

Gentile, 31, was a toddler when the family moved from Argentina to the U.S. in the mid-90s. He is a green card holder, and the father of two U.S. citizen children, ages 6 and 8.

Verdi and Rey say they have shielded their grandkids from the severity of Gentile’s current situation in South Georgia, where he is clad in an orange jumpsuit and fighting to remain in the country. They told the children that he had to leave on an urgent trip.

“They ask, ‘Where is my daddy?’ And we can’t tell them, ‘Daddy is in jail,’” Verdi said.

“We had to lie to them because we don’t want to hurt them,” Rey added.

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

Gentile was targeted by immigration officials because of a misdemeanor on his record following a 2020 conviction in California of infliction of injury. He was initially sentenced to five years’ probation, subsequently reduced to three, in a case that was closed in 2023, court records show.

In February, after Gentile returned to the U.S. from a trip abroad and landed at the Los Angeles International Airport, Department of Homeland Security officials confiscated his green card and Argentine passport.

They directed Gentile to report to a Customs and Border Protection office in Raleigh, where he lives, on April 14. When he did, officials detained him and sent him to a local county jail. After two days, Verdi says he was transferred to Stewart.

“My son tells me that where he is right now, he is the only person who has papers. Everyone else is undocumented,” Rey said.

Legal immigrants targeted

In its first 100 days, the Trump administration’s immigration dragnet has impacted foreign nationals living in the country legally.

That has been most felt on college campuses, as federal officials have in recent weeks revoked 1,500 student visas.

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

Green cards traditionally offer more stability, granting recipients the right to legally live and work in the U.S. as permanent residents, and provide a smooth pathway to citizenship.

But the federal government may still initiate removal proceedings if green card holders are accused and convicted of certain crimes. Both decades-old and minor convictions can trigger detention and removal. In Gentile’s case, immigration officials cited his California conviction when charging him with committing “acts which constitute the essential elements of a crime involving moral turpitude,” according to his notice to appear in immigration court.

“Those who violate these laws will be processed, detained, and removed as required,” Customs and Border Protection Assistant Commissioner Hilton Beckham said. “Green card holders who have not broken any U.S. laws, committed application fraud, or failed to apply for a reentry permit after a long period of travel have nothing to fear about entering and exiting the country.”

Scrutiny of legal immigrants is especially high at points of entry, including airports, where authorities have wide leeway to detain anyone who isn’t a citizen, said Charles Kuck, an Atlanta-area immigration attorney.

Rey and Verdi said their son had been able to travel internationally in recent years without running into trouble. But border officials are now taking a harder line with green card holders who have offenses on their records, Kuck said.

“Under previous administrations, people may have traveled without a problem. They say, you know, ‘Not worth our time. Minor thing.’ Now there are no minor things,” Kuck said. “There is a zero-tolerance policy under Trump.”

Reports of green card holders being detained have fueled fear among permanent residents. Kuck said his office has been fielding daily calls from green card holders seeking reassurance, something Kuck last experienced in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Even immigrants who have become naturalized citizens are worrying needlessly about their ability to leave and get back into the country, according to Kuck.

“I had a U.S. citizen come in this last week. She was literally in tears. She wanted to go to the wedding of a very dear family member,” Kuck said. “She’s been a citizen for 25 years, never convicted of anything. She was crying in my office.”

Suffering in detention

Rey and Verdi said they are troubled by Gentile’s notice to appear before an immigration judge, because they say it erroneously insinuates that Gentile has previously spent years in jail.

For the 2020 offense in California, “you were sentenced to five (5) years in probation with two (2) served in confinement,” the notice document reads.

He spent just two days in the Los Angeles County jail, court records show.

They lodged a habeas corpus petition challenging Gentile’s detention, but he is not guaranteed an immigration court hearing before May 12.

The weeks Gentile will have to spend in detention are weighing on his parents.

They say Gentile has told them that Stewart has at times been overcrowded, with people sleeping on the floor with lights kept on throughout the night. He’s had trouble getting access to basic toiletries, and relies on cups of noodle soup bought at the commissary for sustenance, his parents said, because provided meals are difficult to stomach — a complaint other Stewart detainees have made over the years.

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

“He asks me ‘What time is it?’ Sometimes he calls me, and he doesn’t even know what the time is,” Rey said.

Brian Todd, a spokesperson of CoreCivic, the private prison company that operates Stewart, disputed those accounts of conditions inside the facility.

“The allegations you were provided are completely false,” Todd said in a statement. “We take seriously our obligation to adhere to all applicable federal detention standards in our ICE-contracted facilities. In terms of the specific claims you provided, all detainees receive a toiletries kit upon arrival, and everyone is offered a bed.”

He added that “three nutritious meals” are provided to Stewart detainees every day.

Feeling betrayed by Trump

In the run-up to last year’s election, Rey and Verdi said they remembered Trump speaking about people like Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan man with no lawful status in the country who was convicted of the murder of nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus.

“During the campaign he gave the example of many criminals from Venezuela who had come in, because many criminals from Venezuela had even killed people. That has nothing to with cases like these,” Verdi said.

The couple said they “of course” would not have voted for Trump had they realized what the scale of the immigration crackdown was going to be.

“This was a massive deception what he did. Because the other side had shown us how indulgent they were (with immigration),” Rey said.

“But we went from having a completely open door to closing it shut with 10 bolts,” Verdi continued.

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

The couple’s shifting views on Trump are not unique, as is reflected in the president’s sliding approval ratings on immigration, which were relatively strong early in the president’s term but have sunk into negative territory.

Around the administration’s 100-day mark, national poll after national poll is showing that a majority of Americans disapprove of its handling of immigration. In Georgia, a survey conducted in mid-April by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution indicates that 52% of voters oppose the president’s immigration policies.

‘Freedom above all’

At El Refugio, Verdi and Rey say they have come to realize that they are better positioned to navigate the complex immigration system than many other families with loved ones in detention. They speak English, can hire attorneys, and are U.S. citizens.

During their stay at the hospitality house, the pair say they’ve met detainee relatives who lack legal status, and were nervous about visiting Stewart. They also spent time with the five young children of a man who was held at the detention center, and their mother.

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

“It broke my heart,” says Verdi. He drove to a nearby store to buy toys for the children, but the family was gone by the time he came back.

Verdi and Rey said that, if it takes too long for their son to fight his case, he would consider asking to be returned to Argentina, despite having no memories of growing up there. The parents might follow along.

“For me, it would be much safer to be in my country,” Rey said. “Freedom above all.”