S3E06 with Matthew Collin Marrero - Holding On To Love Through The Unthinkable

Matthew Collin Marrero is a New York City–based singer, songwriter, and published poet ... an artist whose work lives at the intersection of identity, advocacy, and truth. Through his voice, he’s spent years telling stories of resilience and self-expression. But nothing could prepare him for the story he’s now living.

What began as a routine immigration interview with his husband Allan quickly turned into something unthinkable.

After arriving with what Matthew described as “a three-inch binder of their entire life”... photos, letters, proof of love ... the interview took a sudden and chilling turn. Within minutes, the tone shifted. They were separated, questioned harshly, and then ... without warning ... Allan was taken away in restraints by ICE officers.

That moment would begin a devastating, months-long ordeal that is still unresolved.  

Allan was moved through a maze of detention centers across the country, New Jersey, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and beyond, often in the middle of the night, with little explanation and no sense of stability. At one point, he was held in overcrowded conditions in the Everglades, describing cages, overflowing toilets, and the constant fear of being forgotten.

Meanwhile, Matthew was left on the outside trying to track his husband across state lines, navigating a system that felt, in his words, like psychological warfare.

Through it all, their love was tested in ways most of us can’t imagine.

This is not just a conversation about immigration.

It’s a story about love under pressure … about resilience in the face of injustice … and about what happens when the system meant to legally process people on their pathway to citizenship, instead begins to break them.

I know both Matthew & Allan would welcome your prayers and to hold the space for Allan, and the countless others detained, to return home to their loved ones.  

To follow Matthew & Allan's remarkable love story, you can find Matthew at https://www.instagram.com/collinmarrero/ and Allan at https://www.instagram.com/i_am_raylandon/

Michael & Allan's community has set up a GoFundMe page to help them put a dent in the costly legal fees incurred during their diligent fight to get Allan home.  https://gofund.me/989abf3b7 Every little bit helps! 

Thank you for joining us and we can't wait to welcome you back again next week! New episodes drop every Thursday and can be found wherever you find your favorite podcasts!  

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Want to learn more about our host, Eric Nicoll?  Visit:  https://ericnicoll.com

Transcript

0:06

Hello everyone, and welcome to season three of the Just Do You podcast. I'm Eric, Nicoll, your host, and I'm so glad you decided to join us today. Whether this is your very first time joining in on the conversation or you've been listening along since the beginning, thank you for being here. This podcast exists because of you. Your stories, your courage and your willingness to keep choosing yourself even when it's not easy. The Just Do You Podcast is a safe space for authentic, unscripted conversations that connect us, inspire us, and remind us of who we are at our core. Together we're going to explore confidence, voice, truth, and what it means to step fully into what I call the just do you sweet spot, that place where you are living honestly, intentionally and unapologetically. This new season is about growth, reflection, possibility and community. I'll be sitting down with friends, colleagues, community leaders, and influencers who are willing to share their journeys, the wins, the challenges, and everything in between. We'll laugh. We may shed a few tears, but in the end, we're going to continue to remind one another that none of us is walking this path alone. So are you ready? Great. Let's do this. Welcome to season three of the Just Do You Podcast. Alright everyone, welcome to today's episode. I am going to just jump right in and get started. We have so much to talk about with our guest today and I am incredibly honored and grateful that he has agreed to hop on today and tell his story. And so I want to introduce everyone today to Matthew Collin Marrero. Hi Matthew. Hello. How are you? I'm hanging in there. How are you? I'm good. Thank you. I honestly spent the better part of the morning a little worried about how to start this conversation because it isn't our typical, Hey, let's talk about your journey to being authentic and finding yourself. But just to give our readers a little bit of background Matthew and his husband Allan Michael Dabrio Marrero live in New York City and 117 days ago Allan was taken from Matthew during a routine green card interview. And unfortunately, this is a story that we hear all too often, especially in this current climate that we're living in. But I wanted to spend some time today with Allan because I was taken by not only his courage, but his commitment to bring Allan home and also Matthew, the thing that I have found so compelling in looking at your social media and following you now is the support of the community and your family that have rallied around you and Allan in this horrific situation. So we're want to get into that. But what I'd like to do is I'd like to learn a little bit more about Matthew where you came from, what your family like was life. Give us a little bit of background on Matthew, and then we'll get into the heart of the conversation today. All right. Thank you first of all for having me. And let's see. I am a gay man trying to survive in a world that seems to be ever changing. I grew up in Bristol, Connecticut in the eighties and the nineties. In the middle of it's either could be cool to be gay or could get you killed. If you think Ellen coming out on tv or Matthew Shepp getting murdered. I struggled with my identity and my sexuality, all of those things. I had a very supportive family. But the things that weigh down on you, weigh down on you. So I did a lot of theater, I did a lot of growing. And then by my early thirties, I had a quarter life crisis and said, I'm leaving everything. I'm moving to New York City. I'm a singer songwriter, so I do a lot of music and I had produced some music and started performing live in New York and it was great and then I fell into the wrong circles and struggled with addiction for nine years. So I am clean and sober for four years. Congratulations. Ounce. Congratulations. Thank you. You learn a lot about who you are, who you can be, and who you want to be. Through all of those trials and tribulations, I have reached some very low points. And climbing out of the pit of addiction, I was able to refine my love for music. Started finding my faith. I re patched relationships with my family, especially my dad who unfortunately passed away only months after I had begun to become clean and sober, but had some of the most meaningful and powerful conversations with him about trying to be happy and going after the things that are important to you. And for me, my mom and dad always have this cute love story where he he pursued her and said, oh I talked to her on the phone and she was listening to Stevie Wonder on the record player, and I knew she was want to be the one. And after their first date, he heel clicked, like something outta singing in the rain. And I always admired my mom and dad's relationship. And so I remember towards the end with my dad just saying, I would really like to find someone the way you love mom. And a year after my dad passed is when I actually met my future husband. And so my husband and I had a kind of a whirlwind relationship and I fell head over heels for him. And we've been married now two and a half years. And yeah. Curious. Brothers and sisters only child. I am the oldest of three. Okay. I'm seven years older than my brother and 12 years older than my sister okay. So there was some distance between Yeah. A permanent babysitter. My coming out in high school was like, oh, you can be gay but you can't date. Or if you go outside you have to bring your brother with you, or you can't go to your prom because you have to babysit your brother and sister type thing. Yeah. Did you love music back then when you were elementary school? Junior high school? High school, always. I was always, that was like my safe place. I was relentlessly picked on growing up. My father had set up our attic in our house to be like a little hangout spot and there was a karaoke machine Oh, wow. So upstairs, and I would sing my Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, because those are my divas. So yeah I would find my safe space in music and singing. When you were back in that time in your life where there was some of that relentless bullying did you have an inclination that you were different? Or was it you did you understand what the bullying was about? How was that experience for you? I always knew I was different. I don't think until maybe a little later I understood the connection to sexuality. But I always was a little more artsy, a little more flamboyant, a little more magical. I used to just, I just had a different viewpoint on everything. And it was hard. It was hard because you don't think there's necessarily something wrong with you, so you don't know. And I say wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with me, but Yeah. Like back then you, you have that feeling like, I don't understand. And I even struggled with even some of my closest friends I went to Catholic school from second grade to senior year of high school. So there is this huge religious weight. So even some of my friends would be like but the Bible says, you're an abomination and all these things. And to have to really. Work through that. Is it's a challenge. It is. I've said this many times on several episodes, and the reason I like to ask the question and take my guests back to their childhood age is because we all have been through something. LGBTQ plus or not. You're always teased for something. Anything. It's just the nature of that beast. And yet what is, I think very clear is that we don't, and our parents didn't, not for any fault of their own. The tools, right? And the conversation and the languaging to open up a dialogue and a conversation about the beauty of being different and expressing. I remember just the other day I go to a painting class that a friend of mine teaches, and I was diagnosed being colorblind back in first grade and horribly teased about the orange grass and the brown trees and the purple water. And I made a decision in that moment, and I shared about this on social media and the comments were really interesting. I did that too. I had that same experience that back then we make a decision about ourselves, right? And how we prevent ourselves from moving forward. And yet, I was sitting in a personal development seminar at the age of 24, and the instructor two days in says, who you are is not your circumstances. And in that moment it clicked and I went, if I had just had that comment yeah. Back at the age of eight, I could have been a really great artist. So now I'm playing and enjoying myself. I'm loving. And I don't care that, I'm not Picasso. I'm just loving that expression. And I say that because what I'm seeing now and the fear that I have in this environment that we're in now, is that we are shutting down that creative expression because it's so muddled and heed by everything else and the fear, and let alone we talk a lot about guilt and shame. Yeah. And that's just not something that we ever hit head on back. I'm a little older than you, but back in those earlier days of our childhood and so I'm always curious about that, but I find it really powerful, the resilience that we have and not to take away from the fact that some kids don't. But yet we're still, I'm 60 this year and I'm still unpacking stuff that happened right back then. That pops up in the strangest times. Yeah. And so even the conversations that I had with my dad prior to him passing. He still, he always supported me, but there was always, there's always this screen between where he still didn't quite understand why I was different or like that I chose to be colorful or flamboyant or I was like, he thought it was an attention thing and I was like, it wasn't, it never was like, I didn't choose this. But at this point now having the conversation with you, dad, I am who I am, did you have that amazing hair when you were in high school and college? No. No, per wait. Did I have it? No. Purple hair came after. I think my dad would probably turn inside out. Yeah our guess if you saw my purple hair now but it, but the hair came as, like you said, like when you, that, that somebody says something and I think somebody said to me like, if you're having a bad day, just do something with your hair. And I was like, oh, okay. And so there was this new salon that had opened across the street from my apartment in Brooklyn, and I was like, you know what? Why not? So I went in, I'm like, can I just do something crazy? And I did. It was more expensive than I thought. So I, my sister is a stylist, so she does it for me, or I'll do it myself now. But I felt so liberated with the change. Like it just took some of what I was feeling on the inside and put it on the outside. Self-expression is so important. And for some it's, and our listeners can't see your hair. But it's this, and I'm colorblind, like I said. But it's this gorgeous shade of purple, just beautiful. And for some people it's hair. For me, it was a tattoo that I got. At 58, where I was. Okay. I always wanted one when I was in school and I was always terrified of my mom. Not that she's this horrible person, but she was a teacher and an administrator. I'm like, oh, I can't be her kid that gets a tattoo. So when I decided to get it, I sat in the parking lot in my car for about 40 minutes shaking.'cause I was so nervous. And then I got it. I was so excited. It was very liberating, it is to have that experience. So I, I get it. I get it. So for some it's hair, for others it's tattoos and for someone else it's different. When you were growing up in high school and in maybe early college and you were starting that coming out process, or that process of getting comfortable with being quote unquote different or starting to realize that there was something that was very special about you. Did you ever think that you would perhaps find that love of your life, that person who just, and I use the word compliment, not complete. I don't agree when people say they complete us, but they compliment us. Did you think about that? I've always been a hopeless romantic Yeah. And always believed in love. Remember I told you I had my mom and dad as a reference, and they were married the whole time. My dad was still alive and they were married at that point 43 years. And, so I just knew it was something that had to happen for me. I may have looked for it in all the wrong places. As many of do, girl, don't we all do. Okay. And trust me, I had my time where I just kept seeking. And, there came a point as I got older, especially when I got through my addiction and became sober, I wasn't sure. I was like, maybe I'm just want to be happy with who I am. And that's, it's just not want to find me the way I want. Because after you go through certain things, especially when you work so hard to get out of addiction, there are certain expectations, boundaries, whatever you want to call it, that were just a no question. There's no if you can't do this for me, then it's not want to work. Yeah. And they say when you, the, when you stop looking for it when you least expect it, most of the time that's what's want to happen. And that's what happened when I met my husband. Yeah. I've been saying that a lot lately. I am back in the dating world after a divorce and I, like I said, I'm turning 60 and I there are moments where I go, I'm just fine. I'm, I'll be fine. I feel the same. I'll, I it's, I'll be fine. Unreal. Especially in this time, at this day and age. Yeah. Things are so different and people are so impatient. Yeah. The ability to pick up your phone and just go, Nick, oh. You know what I mean? It's, and I was single. My divorce was finalized in 2019 and I moved to San Diego from Palm Springs to start up my life over. And I was excited. I was like, I'll get back into it. I was still dealing with it, but I'm like, oh, I'm want to get back into it in San Diego. It's want to be this great community. Moved in December of 2019, three months later, COVID. Oh, no. So that obviously threw the wrinkle in the plan, but what's I agree with you though. When you stop looking for it, and that's actually how I met my ex-husband. How I've met all of my par all sounds like a dozen, the three Yeah. You do knew. Go do me. Yeah. Just do me oh. If you only knew. It's only been the three and dry spots in between. But I love, and we're want to definitely talk about Allan. I love. I am a firm believer in it. I am a believer in marriage. I love the opportunity to. Live your life with someone and experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. And again, being there to compliment the other person and to stand in the space of letting them soar and be extraordinary. Tell us a little bit, what was the first time you saw Allan? If you can share that. Yeah, I can. Okay, good. Okay, good. It's very Disney. It's a very Disney story. I saw the pause and I'm like, wait a minute. Hopefully I'm not stepping down a bad path. No. Okay. I was doing a a live talk on Instagram with some friends about music and things, and a friend of his was on the live, so he came and was watching it and started liking some of my things on Instagram and. My husband is, to me, is very sexy, very handsome. When I saw his face liking my things, I was just like, it's just a bot. There's no way. So I let it, I let it slide for a couple days, but he kept liking things and then he made a comment on one something and I was like, all right, I'll bite. So I sent him a message thanking him and we just started texting. And so a few days in we're texting, having cute little back and forth. I didn't understand how to say his screen name. So I was like, can you send me a voice message so I understand how to say your screen name? And here he comes, he's from the Cayman Islands and he has this cute little accent. And I was like, oh, I'm in so much trouble. So from there we started voice messaging. Then we started talking on the phone, and I swear we started talking at the end of January. By the second week or first week of February, I was like, I'm want to marry this man. I just know it, it was just, the conversation was so great. Come to find out a couple months in, we're talking and we hadn't met. He was, he said he was out in Long Island, a little further out. He, too was in rehab. I had finished rehab a year before. He was currently going through some stuff. And he was so scared. Like I, we had made this connection and he was so scared I was want to run the other way. And I was like let me tell you about me. And so we had, we built our entire relationship in those first few months purely on just communication. We hadn't met in person. And so when the meet time came, it was a surprise. He had, he was, towards the end of his program, he had gotten a day pass and he sends me a message normally by this time we'd FaceTime and he was like I have something to do in the house. Why don't you go take a shower, go across the street, get yourself a coffee and I'll, and call me when you get back. So I'm like. Oddly specific, but okay, I'll, so I put on some music and I'm getting my Saturday morning started and I shower, get ready, I head out the door and as I get off my elevator, I'm walking towards the front door and I see legs and, normally I would just go straight to the door. Something made me veer a little to the right and look down and it was him. And I lost my mind. I ran out the door and me, I'm normally a little more shy when meeting somebody for the first time and I just kissed him like, something out of a romantic movie. And we had, that was our first in-person date. It was beautiful. We called my mother, we walked all over Brooklyn. We shared stories and the rest is history. I literally did a heel click like my dad. Yeah. Yeah, for real. What was the first thing, obviously you met by voice and by text and all that. But what was the first thing that you noticed about him that really captivated you? Huh? His compassion? And his perspective on what love and relationship should look like. Like you mentioned about, it's not about a completion, it's about a complimenting. And we both agreed on if we're both 100%, individually. Sometimes. Depending on the day or whatever, that sometimes in a good relationship, if you're dropping down to 70, somebody might, the person who cares for you might help you to get back to your 100. Or if you're both down, that you rely on each other to, to feel those feelings or work through that stuff, but never feel alone, that the relationship is about, that ebb and flow. What would be the first thing that he said captivated him about you? Oh. I think first he was impressed with my ability to communicate and my desire to be artistic and share my gifts with the world'cause that's what he started to like on the Instagram. And then I think, I don't know, he just, he thinks I'm magical. He calls me his unicorn. So it's embarrassing for me to say what I think he thinks, but these are things that he says to me. I always believe in magic. And magic meaning you can see the most amazing things in the littlest of things. In, in, in the world, in your life. Like I am recklessly optimistic. He is a little more, cautious. So I think he sees that desire to always find the good in something that he loves. Just so you know, and this is unsolicited advice, but we all see in you what you don't see in yourself. So I encourage you to not be embarrassed by what you said because it's how we see you. And we all have those feelings about ourselves. It's difficult for us sometimes. And so I've been really taken by a lot of my guests when I ask that question, struggle to answer it, and then they realize just how silly that is, because that's who you are, right? And it's part of that authenticity. It's part of who you are. All right, so you've had this amazing first kiss, blah, blah, blah, and this amazing first date. And you, I, and I love it when people say, I've met the person I'm want to marry, because everyone's oh, it's too soon. How did you know blah, blah, blah. It's blah, blah, blah. And all their little assumptions and conversation about it. Yeah. Yeah. But I said the same thing about my ex-husband. I was like. Yeah. This is the guy I'm want to spend the rest of my life with. Now he obviously had a different version of that. But I said that and it was so early on, and I think, I don't think where that comes from is that energetic connection that we get that we don't always pay attention to. Especially in these days because we're swiping left, swiping. Exactly. Looking at pictures, which may or may not be you. Ages that may or may not be true. And so we have to filter sort through all that. And we're It's true. Yeah. And so we're, if one more person tells me there's no way that I'm 60, I'm like, why would I lie up? I'm just not, I'm just not lying. It's truth. But I digress. I think what's so important is that we. That we take the time to really stand in the space of that authenticity. Especially like you said, when we're in that relationship. Because there are times when you're both up, there's times when the other person is up or down. And what's so important, especially these days, and this has been the hardest thing, Matthew, for me, not only watching your story, which we're want to get into, but really just wrapping my head around what's happening. Yeah. To families and to couples around this country. I can't get my head around it because I am I don't know what the word is. I, I sometimes say a little too Pollyanna, but I just can't get my head around what it feels like to be separated from a family member or a loved one, or a partner or a spouse especially when there is that basis and that foundation of what you have when you're in love with someone. So I, I wanted to just say one thing before we go into this part of the conversation is that, and I said this before, but I'm want to say it again. I am really taken by your courage and by you ability to wake up every day. You spend every day updating us on social media of what's happening. I really want to acknowledge you and say thank you for the courage. I know it can't be easy. I am sure there are times when you don't want to do that and you probably want to yell and scream and pound your fist and and say things that may or may not be appropriate for Yeah. Social media. But I wanted to just say thank you and we are here with you as well. There are thousands of people across the country and probably even. Around the world that have seen the news stories that were quite prevalent when this first happened. But I just want to say thank you for being who you are and having the courage to be authentic through, I'm sure what's probably one of the most difficult things that you've had to go through. It is very difficult, but it is. I'm grateful for the community and the love and support. Being able to meet you, the people I have spoken to from this country and around the world in support and solidarity plus my own community here. In the city, it's it's very important. Community is very important. And I know also too, that your faith is very important to you. And I was really taken by the post from your church and from, I think it was your pastor which was it's want to make me cry really beautiful because that community is something that we all strive for it right now, and we're all suffering because community is fragile and community is fractured right now. And I was sitting in a friend's premier of a documentary took place in New York about grandmas and these grandmas were in certain parts of New York. And they would sit at this purple booth that asked a question, what's weighing on your mind today? What's heavy today? What are you concerned about? And they documented the conversations that the people would have with these grandparents. And I miss my grandmother a lot. Yeah, me too. But what I really miss is that community. Yeah. And even in times of. Celebration community can be very tough to find and hard to come by. I just was really blown away by the support you have. So let's talk about this and I'm hoping I get through this. I'm known as the podcast crier'cause I just very emotional about stuff like this. So you're, I cry cotton commercials too we might, yeah, I got it. All right. Good. It's fine.'cause I tell people in the onboarding call, it's fine. But let's share the story. So you're, take us to that day and what happened. Maybe something leading up to that and give us a little bit of background of why you were there in the first place. All right. So obviously we got married. Yes. We got married. We were married for two years. And as I said, my husband's from the Cayman Islands. He's been in the United States since 2013. Legally, never been a criminal, never been commit, never committed a crime. Always filed all his paperwork meticulously his entire time here. When we got married because we were in love and that was just what we felt we wanted to do. It had nothing to do with changing his status or anything like that. Sure. But as I said, we both had our struggles with addiction and things, and my husband's never been shy about his own journey. And so I got a lot of my inspiration for my social media posts based on my husband's social media posts.'cause he would talk about his story and communicate with his audience. He wanted to be to apply to school to become a nurse, so that he could give back the way people helped him. And so when he applied, he was accepted, but in order to get financial aid you need to have your green card. So that initiated a saying, okay, it's time. And you have to understand immigration is a very complicated system, and it's very personal. You come here from another land and acclimate and do all this work in order to become part of this country. It is a very personal and independent journey. It was a big milestone in our relationship too, for him to say, okay, I'm ready. Because then you are now giving somewhat kind of control to the person that you are committed to because a lot rides on this. Now you're an individual, now you're coming together as a unit. And it's a very big deal. So we did, we couldn't afford legal counsel, so we did everything on our own. We filed all the paperwork and to the t dotted every, I, everything we, we made sure we submitted it was accepted and we were notified that we would have a green card interview in November. At this point, it's maybe September, so we're like, oh my God. So how, why so many months to wait? But, okay, so in that time we. We research what is important for an interview. So in somewhere we were told that, you should have a binder presented in sections of financials, your life together, your immigration paperwork, everything. We had a three inch binder of our life in paper. We were so proud of it. It was like, if you were to say, what has your life been like, we could just hand somebody this binder and it would be like, here's our story. We had been going to middle church in the lower East side of New York City, that is our church. And I sing with the gospel choir there. So my husband would go, sometimes my husband would, put on a fur and some heels if he felt like it. And, just be fabulous. Yeah. And people just love him and, and they loved him even more because I had been with the church for over a decade at that point. So they knew how happy he made me. They were like, we love him. So one Sunday Reverend Amanda, one of our pastors at the church did a sermon on immigration and what it's been doing to the country in specifics to even children and families being torn apart. And it really moved me. Remember I said, I am recklessly optimistic, so I'm thinking nothing's want to happen to us. But I did. I was moved to go tap her on the shoulder at the end and just say, Hey, we have our green card interview in November, would you mind praying for us? And she immediately was like, do you have anybody going with you? Do you need me to go with you? I can go with you. And I was like, that's a thing. And you have to imagine, Reverend Amanda is this tall, beautiful, white blonde, blue-eyed woman who's got enough power to light up this city. So I was like, okay. All right. So I went to go tell my husband that she's want to come, and I just started to sob because I was, I don't know why, but I just felt like suddenly we weren't doing this alone. And my husband cautious was like, okay, this is good, this is really good. So he was more optimistic at that moment. So fast forward to November 24th, 2025, the Monday before Thanksgiving. It is our green card interview day. We are dressed to the nines in our suits and everything. We meet our pastor there, she's want to come with us, and we go into 26th Federal Plaza in New York City, which is this black box of a building. And it's very intimidating. Everything is very cold and I don't know, it feels cruel almost. And there's people outside protesting saying, if anything happens, here's this paper. Show this paper, call this number. We're starting to feel nervous. But I'm still like, all right, we're want to be okay. We go inside. We get upstairs. The woman who gives us our ticket says, you guys look so amazing. Good luck. Everything's want to be great. Okay. So we waited for maybe like almost an hour before they finally called us, and we present the binder. We don't go in anywhere. We're still in the waiting room. She says, I don't want that. She dismisses our binder, says, I need you to take that whole thing apart. I don't want it like that. I need all loose documents. We had over 300 photos hundreds of papers we had to take, dismantle this whole thing. So that took us another 45 minutes to an hour. That dis disarmed us a little bit because we're like unnecessary. It just felt unnecessary. They call us again, the three of us walk up and the officer says she can't come with you. And so our pastor tried to fight. She's I've done this several times with families as a spiritual guide, and so we asked for the supervisor. The supervisor said, it is totally up to the officer doing the interview, which was the lady who told us to take the binder apart. And Reverend Amanda was willing to get arrested that day she told me. But we were like, no, it's okay. We don't want to, we don't want to make any waves. So we get into this interview, they separate us. They put my husband at the desk, and they put me up against the wall behind him, and she begins to, this is your interview for a green card adjustment of status. How did you meet? And so just as I told you, I start to light up and I look over at my husband to start saying how we met, and she snaps her finger at me and she says, don't look at him. And I was like, oh, okay. This is our love story and I'm not allowed to look at my husband. Oh, okay. All right. So continues awkward, cold, harsh like that, even to the point where she says do you, what are the flaws in your husband that you see? And I was like, I really don't, I don't have, I don't really have any flaws with him. And she's nobody's perfect, sir. And I just remember being like, wow, okay. So then the bomb drops. She then tells us that my poor husband had missed a hearing in 2022. And because he had missed that hearing, they had ordered him removed in ab absentia, which means he now has a removal from the country on the books. We had no idea, none whatsoever. And she says to us, I'll approve your marriage, but your green card is being declined and out of the goodness of my heart I will let you leave this building safely. She said That Uhhuh, I could have called ice, but I won't do that. And so what? My poor husband is a wreck. He's crying. She starts going in and out of the office. So I'm like, baby, it's okay. We're want to figure this out. We're want to get a lawyer, we'll talk to Amanda, we'll get everything. It's want to be okay. In my head though, I'm like scrolling traffic. She finally comes back and she says, anything that has happened in this office is what within my control, anything out of this out of the office I cannot control. And I asked her directly, does that mean we're want to be detained? And she said, I don't know. So then the supervisor comes in and takes our file and asks us to follow him. One of the things that irks me to this day, even though yes, she approved our marriage, thank you, that will be helpful in the future. She says, have a nice day. So in hindsight, we're being following the supervisor in the opposite direction that we came in. My husband and I are hand in hand squeezing each other's hand. We go through this maze of hallways, petrified. We go through this double doors, and the supervisor hands our file over to ice agents. He walks back through the doors, doesn't say anything, and they start to apprehend my husband. It happened so fast. I don't even still know how truly to express the everything that you are feeling in that moment. They are. My husband's crying. I'm crying. I'm trying to figure out, I'm trying to look at my phone to call Reverend Amanda. There is zero service in this area, probably on purpose. And I, I. I get upset because sometimes I think I think back did I even kiss him goodbye? Like something so silly, but so important. And they took him, they cuffed him and they brought him towards the elevators that were, we were standing by. And I fought an old version of me, like in, in my addiction days of just freezing and not being able to do anything. And I was like, I'm not want to be that person right now. And so I'm crying, but I start running through the hallways looking, trying to find where my, our pastor is. And I'm like, Amanda, they took him and this is where community is. So for me, has been so important. She activated our entire church community. She handled everything for me because at that point I went blank. Numb. Like my husband has just been taken from me. Trying to figure out what is it that we're want to do? And so much happened and in that first few hours we were able to start locating legal counsel. We, I had to call my mom. My mom and my sister said, all right we're heading in with the car just in case you need the car to go find, do something. So much happened as we are waiting now outside the building. My phone rings and it's my husband and I'm thinking, oh my God, they made a mistake. They're want to let him out. And, it was not the case. They, they didn't have enough space in the detention hall that they would hold all the detainees on the 10th floor of the building. So they were keeping him there. But once they had space, they would take his phone, take his wedding ring, take his shoes, everything. So I go home that night. They said that he was want to be able to call me by 3:00 PM That call never came. My mom gets there. My mom is a former registered nurse. Her concern was we need to get him his medication. So the plan was we were want to go back to Federal Plaza then the following morning to bring the medication, only to find out when we got there that morning that he had been moved in the middle of the night somewhere else and we didn't know where. So we located him and but that was, I didn't hear from him for 36 hours. And when he did finally call, he had three minutes. He didn't even know where he was. I knew because our now lawyer had found out where he was and that began the journey that we are on right now. He has been moved about six times from New Jersey, from Federal Plaza to New Jersey to Phoenix, to Texas, to Louisiana. He was in Alligator Alcatraz in the middle of the Everglades for about two weeks where he says you're literally in human cages and the toilets are there, feces and things are overflowing. The toilets there's poisonous signs for poisonous snakes to be watched out for. And then he finally got moved from there and he's been in the facility in Natchez, Mississippi since. And it has been a nightmare. When we finally got word that the original judge that had ruled on my husband in 2022, we had proof that one, he had always been to any of his other check-ins and hearings. He had done everything else. And then we had the doctor's notes in the program certificates that he had finished in his rehabilitation and that is where he was. So the judge reopened his case and removed, rescinded the order of removal. So that meant this is the original judge or the new judge? The original judge. The original judge from 2020. Okay. Got it. From 2022. Got it. So that was excellent because now that meant my husband is back in good standing with where he was, where he thought he was this whole time. And now we have to, have a bond hearing, even though all of this had been changed in his favor, we still have to ask for bond. However, we have letters from community, family, friends, congressmen everything. We, my lawyer says, fly to Mississippi right now and get there because they're want to let him out. So I fly to Mississippi and I'm able to visit him while I'm there waiting for the bond hearing. And the bond judge saw all of the evidence that we provided, knew he had this strong community support, and was like, he has a, he stated on the record that he has a clear pathway to citizenship and said. This is the bond that has to be paid and he should not be detained. The ICE attorney tried to say he was a flight risk and we're like flight risk to what? So he could fly home to be with his husband because that's the only flight he's want to be taking. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately we thought it was want to, he would be released that day. No. The second day still, no. At the end of that day, we got a call from our attorney saying ICE has the right to place an a stay order. Meaning they can hold him for an additional 10 days in case they want to appeal the judge's decision. Not the greatest of news, but we're like, all right. They're not want to appeal. There's nothing to appeal this judge. Yeah. What's to appeal? What's to appeal? He, the judge already said he had a clear pathway to citizenship and we're waiting for that. In the meantime, there is another hearing that has been set a couple weeks in advance so that we can then reapply for his green card and get that moving again. That judge was a, is a temporary immigration judge that was assigned by Trump and Pam Bondi in October of 2025. So that was how new he was. He before the hearing doesn't get our application, doesn't get the evidence that we've provided. All the other judges sees that my husband was in rehab in 2022, the or original reason why he missed the original hearing and says that my husband is a habitual drunkard and that he should be removed from the country. This is an illegal and unconstitutional move, but unfortunately is something that we still have to fight because then ICE then saw that judge place that. Order and has since kept my husband. My husband has not gotten out. So that's where we are at right now. We are reaching out to elected officials. We have filed an appeal with the Board of Immigration Appeal. We are seeking other avenues to fight this. And this is where that community helps me because there are moments where I just want to scream because how is it that all of this bad and wrong, evil, illegal stuff can happen? But the only way we can combat it is through the right legal way. It's a not fair, but it's what we're doing. But that is where we are. And today is day 117. Boy I. I listen to that story and again, it brings me back to who you are and the courage that you have. I don't. I'm speaking out of a assumption of myself. I know myself. And as I was reading and watching your story and learning more about what was happening, the amount of rage that was bubbling up for me was greater than anything I've ever experienced before. And typically, and usually a very calm Yeah. Yeah. And easygoing person. But I'm also an empath and I'm also somebody who has watched this time and time again. I've seen a child taken out of its mother's arms while the mother was thrown to the ground and zip tied and thrown in the back of a truck. I've seen the stories of people who have been detained or who have been taken off the streets watching this child now who he and his entire family are Right. Going to be de potentially deported. And I shake my head, Matthew, because I don't understand it. I don't get it. I, this is what I can't wrap my head around, and yet I'm talking to somebody who's living it in this very moment and feel helpless at the same time, want to do what I can to help you and to help Allan and to help all the other people that are going through this. And. At the same time. I don't know what to say. I don't know the question to ask you, because I'm gobsmacked. I'm just absolutely gobsmacked. How is he doing? How is he holding up, how is he finding the strength to push through this? He is, again I, this is why I love him so much. He is an amazing, strong man, and this is difficult. And the, he has his good and bad days and I revert back to my statement about the a hundred hundred. There are days that I am cheering him on to be like, you're doing okay. We're want to get through this. You're want to get out. And then there's days that I'm the one who's I, this is awful. And he'll be like, it's okay baby. We're want to be together. It's want to be fine. So his resilience is. Inspiring. It is what helps me keep sharing the story. And again, that same desire to help people. He manages to do within he is in a room with 200 other men where the fluorescent lights are on 24 7. A lot of people don't speak English or very little English and, but they're people like us that we're really just trying to do the right thing, trying to follow the rules and procedures set out for us that have been detained. And there are also people that don't have the community and the resources that we have. And it's not lost on me how very fortunate we are to have the community and support that we have. And so he tries to pass that along. He'll call me and say, Hey, can you look up pro bono lawyers in the area so that I can get numbers so that I can give to my friends in here and whatever. It's, he's finding community within there too. And he's trying to do what he can because he also knows if we didn't have this community, I don't know where we would be right now in this battle. Yeah. So He's brilliant. He's absolutely brilliant. And I love him so much. I know you do. He shared or you shared a post, it's the one that took me out this morning where you were sharing that he ca just was telling you that it's okay to let him go. Ugh. And it just broke my heart, Matthew. It broke my heart. It's like the very awful thing about ice, and these are the, this is part of why we tell the story is because there are people who still don't believe the nonsense that is going on. Yeah. They are inflicting psychological Warfare on these detainees, in where, in which they will say, you are stressing your family, you are a burden to the people outside because it's want to cost money and it's difficult. Or whatever that they say to make you believe that the most important thing for you to do to help is to self deport. Sign the documentation to say, get outta this country. Do your family and your loved ones a favor and leave. And my husband, like me, like you are very sensitive to the feelings and the needs of others. And so his first thing is, baby, I love you, but this is hard. This is too hard for you. Let me go let me go. Don't, I don't want to stress you. Just let me go. And it is, it's the most, it is the most frustrating, infuriating thing to hear because one, no, you are the love of my life. I will not be letting you go. Yeah. Especially like this. I will fight for you. I need you to believe in me. That I will fight for you. Yeah. You need to fight there. Do not listen to what these people are telling you because it is not true. Every person that is in there is a human being. Every person in there has a family, has someone that loves them. How dare they? How very dare they go in and tell these poor people whose whole life has been upended that you are worthless to these people to leave the country not even guaranteed that you're want to go home to where you're from. Yeah. You know what I mean? It is. It is intentional cruelty at its worst. And so I have told him time and time again, baby, and there's days sometimes he gets there. Because it's a lot. You're stuck. Yeah. His world is paused and frozen. I'm out here where I'm, he doesn't see the machine that myself, my community, have built to fight this monster. He doesn't see it. I can tell him on the phone, but he doesn't experience it. Sure can't. Can't it? So I see it. Have to remind him, baby, you are absolutely worth it. You absolutely have so much to give and he still wants to be a part of this country. There are days that I don't know, I know. I don't even know if I want to be part of this country. You know what I mean? He still believes in why he came here in the first place. So it's, it is that, that we're like, people are like, aren't you afraid of telling your story? No. I need you to hear this story because this is the stuff that is being done. Yeah. They're not going after the worst of the worst. No. They're not just going after murders. Do you think murderers, rapists and drug dealers are the ones walking into the building to do the things that we're supposed to do? No. But see, Matthew, this is, but this is it's such a great point. And I'm not smiling because it's funny. I'm smiling because it's so ironic. Because you make a great point. No, the murder is not want to walk in with his husband holding hands, who he calls the unicorn. Exactly. With the purple hair, no. With the purple hair and the pastor tailing behind it. Yeah. But I think. What I worry about is that I wake up into the conversation. What today? What today. Because it comes at us like a fire hose. Yeah. And it's intentional, it's strategic. Just like what they're saying to your husband at the detention center. It's strategic. And I like you have a great amount of faith and a great amount of hope that when someone says that to someone like Allan or to someone else, that you are worthless to your loved ones. That they shake their head like we do. And stand in that space of. That's just not true. You can say what you want, but that's just not true. It's that beating down, it's that fire hose of information right. That comes with them. And I, like I said, I can't wrap my head around what Allan's going through. I can't even imagine it. Like they, he can't imagine what's happening in and in our world. Currently we're outside of that detention center because there are people who feel hopeless, who feel desperate, who feel resignation. There are people who have swept this under the rug. There are people who don't want to talk about it. Yet at the same time, there is this mass amount of people that are rallying behind you and Allan, the others that are going through the same thing, the people who have already been detained and released. And I feel as though that energy that is pulsing around our country and from. Those around the world that are seeing the ludicrousness, if that's a word. I may have just made that up. The insanity. How about that? The insanity of it all. The insanity of it all. And saying that when we do get to the other side of this, and I do believe that we will get to the other side of this and Allan and the others will be released when we get to the other side of this, the strength and the unity that we've shown as a community, as a country. And I still don't think it's enough. And I say that not to belittle the people who are out doing what they can. In whatever way they can. I say it because I think we've been hit with that fire hose so much, that we don't know which way to turn. We don't know what to say, who to say it to because again, strategically we are hit every day with Right. The most insane things. And I, go ahead. I was want to say I, with my pastors at the church middle church is a multi-ethnic, multicultural everything, every single person is welcome there. Whether you believe in God or don't. Yeah. Queer, trans, white, black, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you learn, you share, you educate. And I have learned myself so much just from from people saying the things that are happening now are not new. Yes. Like today is 61 years since Martin Luther King marched across the bridge in Selma. Like these things, a lot of these things aren't new. It's just hitting closer to places that some people have been privileged to not feel the discomfort and it's getting worse and worse. And so my, my, what I've been being taught is that the best way to fight it is to fight through sharing your stories. Best way to fight it is by educating yourself and realizing that this stuff isn't new. And learn from the people who have already been oppressed and have been hit by the hose and have been fighting for this for decades. And learn from them and learn to continue to communicate and stand up. No one's want to get anywhere if we just sit silent and, and just let it happen because we don't think it's want to happen to us. And it's just so important that community, you talk to your neighbors. You treat people the way you want to be treated and realize that we're being lied to about a lot of things. There are people, I still get comments in my social media that they automatically think that, what has happened to my husband? There must have been a reason, because this is what the administration has told us, or this is the story that my neighbor told me. Because, they don't know any better. No. The only way to combat this is to continue to lift your voice and fight. And tell somebody what is happening so that it moves them to say, you know what? That's not right. A lot of times, and I've said this before, people don't always think the thought thinks them. And you can apply that in so many different areas, Matthew. You really can, and across the board of what we're experiencing now. I can guarantee that so many of these people who are out spouting some of this stuff is simply the thought that thought them because someone said it. Or they saw it on social media. I was flipping around. I don't spend a lot of time on formerly Twitter just because I don't need to. But I was flipping around the other day'cause I'm always, looking and doing research for the podcast. And I saw an AI report of something that was completely contradictory to what actually happened and it had 30,000 comments in support. And I went, wait, I just watched that last night. On Scary the news. I thought, but this is why, because again, this isn't new. It's always been there. Yeah. But we didn't have the outlets that we have, to get the information out. And now that's even being compromised. So I love what you said because we have to not only live our own truth. Yeah. We have to be able to talk about that truth. We have to be able to ask other people questions. We have to be able to be inquisitive and inquire. And it's not just how was your weekend? It's how are you today? Is there anything that I can do to help you? And it's one of open and be open to more than just, oh, I'm fine. Yeah. Or, okay. Let you know. That's what the grandmother said exactly in the documentary. It's listen, grandmother's, my grandmother, my husband's grandmother, they all the grandmothers know when you're special. They do. And they know they push you out into the world and say go be special. But that's the thing that was so prevalent about the basis of the documentary was the number of people from a child who sat and talked to one of the grandmothers, to a guy who had just retired every single one of the people, and they interviewed over 60 people for this documentary, and every single one of them wanted to be seen. Heard and acknowledged, and the one grandmother kept saying, I am proud of you. And you would've thought they told these people that Santa Claus was real and the tooth fairy was real, and all of those things that we wanted to believe, but it become so pessimistic gout. But I also believe that it's because we don't have that constant ability to stand in the space of love. Yeah. That we are latching on to whatever we can because it's what's there in front of us. And so I want you to keep telling your story. I am so again, honored and grateful for you to come on today because I was chatting the other day with a friend about having you on. I had wanted you on since the first time I saw your post, but it took me a while to reach out because I wanted to be respectful of, of you and Allan. But I'm glad that I did. But I was talking to my friend the other day and I said, one of the things that I think has to take place now is that we start to really get out and like you said, talk to people, share the stories. The only way that people are want to find out about what happened to Allan and what happened to these other detainees is by sharing it, but by sharing it in a way that's authentic. And that's real. And look you and I just met. But I feel more connected to you and Allan now than I do some people that I've known for a long time. Because of the compassion and because of the empathy. Because of you sharing your story. So let me ask you a couple final questions'cause I want to be respectful of your time. No, you're fine. What, we're want to obviously share social media with our listeners, but what can we do, what can our listeners do to help you and to help Allan right now? Is there anything we can do? For me right now, it is the most important thing is just to share our story. Because the education component behind it, I think is what is want to help make changes in the world. Because there are other people out there that might be going through this that are scared and don't have the resources or the community. If you know of people or resources or community, share those. Share, just share them so that people know that they're out there. As far as myself and Allan, my sister set up a GoFundMe. We've spent thousands upon thousands dollars. GoFundMe, if you can, that's always helpful. But not necessary. The sharing of our story is the most important because when my husband gets home, and it's not a matter of if, it's when no, when when he gets home, we will continue to fight. We will continue to advocate for the people who don't have what we have. And advocate for more people understanding, just, I don't want to sound mean, but like human decency. Like we are all human and we are living on a floating rock in the middle of the sky, hurling through space on stolen land, built on the backs of immigrants. And we should be leading. With love. Not hate or, we should be honoring everyone's differences, not pitting them against each other. Those things that make us unique and the things that help us generate love and compassion and express our humanness will be celebrated on the other side of whatever this is. I truly believe that we are all human beings wanting to be loved and seen and heard. Yeah. We, like you said, we all want to be heard and seen in a way where we feel love and respected. And that is probably the number one reason why I fell in love with my husband, was that he heard and see, he heard me and saw me in ways that I never felt before. And if that can be replicated. Just through kindness. Through empathy. That could be so Yeah. So powerful, impactful of a thing to help heal. Yeah. But until we get there, we need to share our story and do that. And I think people need to really understand as a final comment, people need to understand, and I struggled with this, with the podcast after the election. I'm in season three. I was just finishing season two. I'm like, I can't do this. I just don't have the energy, I don't have the bandwidth, I don't have the emotional stability to do another year of this just with everything that was going on. And my mentor and coach, who's also a podcaster and a, a dear friend, and one of my biggest cheerleaders said, if you help one person, if one person hears an episode and. It shifts their perception, it changes their view, it makes them inquire, it shows them love, it shows them support. You've done your job one person. Absolutely. And that really hit home. And I realize we hit more people than that, but if we can have one person listen to this and say, oh, okay, this makes sense now. And maybe start to inquire and shift and change and grow. When you started sharing the story in the beginning, I had a friend say to me that it was a perception that if two people are married in the United States and one is an immigrant, that it automatically guarantees them their green card. No, you are. You are eligible, absolutely you're eligible, but that's a guarantee. But you still have to go because there's money involved. You have to pay. Yes. You have to file applications, you have to, you have to have the interview to prove, we have a legitimate marriage. Now. That was one of the great things about our interview was that I, as the US citizen, have my own application that I have to fill out. Yeah. And he has his own application. My application was approved as the US citizen. Our marriage is considered absolutely 100000% legit, but his green card was denied. So Yeah, it doesn't automatically say, oh, you're safe. No. There's processes. There's a lot people that's, people do. But I think that's a big misunderstanding with a lot of people that they think just because you guys were married guaranteed him citizenship. A green card and it just doesn't work that way. Yeah. There you become eligible 1000%. It is not, but there is a race to run still. But I, and I don't make a light of it, but I think that's where I want people to just start asking questions. And look into this. It doesn't mean just because you were married, he was guaranteed his green card. So it's a very difficult and flawed system. Yeah. So the more you ate yourself and learn about it, you'll see that it's very hard. It's a very difficult thing. Yeah. I want to say a couple things as we wrap this up. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for being vulnerable and for being open to share. My heart is with you and Allan. Thank you. My support is there. We're going to share, obviously, social media and the GoFundMe, and I have an invitation that when Allan gets out I may or may not invite myself to your wedding, but I want, but I'll stand in the back of the corner, but I we're already married, but we have, I know. We are going to have a ceremony. This is very short. Yeah I goofed and I should have said that I saw it on a post that you guys are want to have a big thing. And I'm, I know you're already married, obviously, so I want to clarify that. But I'm, yeah. Oh, I was in love with that post. People can find it for themselves. Please, I would love you and Allan to come back on the podcast and I want to obviously meet him and know more about him and celebrate the both of you and for what you're doing, not only for each other, but for the countless others that are wrongfully detained. And you will make a difference. You may never see that difference, but you will. And I'm really grateful to have you on today, and I thank you for being here. Thank you so much. I appreciate it as well, and I look forward to having you meet my husband. I can't wait. I can't wait. And you take care and keep us updated. Okay. You too. All right. Bye-bye. Bye for now. All right, everyone. Thank you again for joining us on today's episode. I hope our conversation resonated with you like it did me, and I cannot wait to sit down with you all again next week. Remember to subscribe to the Just Do You Podcast on your favorite platform so you can make sure not to miss a new episode, which drop every Thursday. If you like what you hear, you could easily share the podcast and episode directly with your friends. And if you would rate us and leave us a review, we'd love to hear from you. You can also follow us on Instagram at Just Do You Pod. As you go out back into the world today remember to just do you. Alright, talk next week.