It happened at a simple green card hearing last Monday at 26 Federal Plaza. The building, home to ICE in New York, is intimidating these days, but Allen Dabrio Marrero and Matthew Marrero, married for two years now, felt confident.
"We were scared, but we also felt like we'd done everything right up to this point," Matthew Marrero said. "My husband has been meticulous with his immigration paperwork. And we've paid all the fees, we pay our taxes, we do everything we're supposed to."
It turned out, there was one thing Allen Dabrio Marrero had missed: a piece of mail when he was between addresses.
"We were told that in December of 2022, he had missed a hearing, and the judge ordered removal," Matthew Marrero said. "That was the first we had ever heard of that."
It was especially surprising since he'd had hearings, gotten work authorization and even a driver's license since then and applied to school to become a nurse.
The 34-year-old has been in the U.S. since 2013, applying for asylum from the Cayman Islands, where it wasn't safe for him to openly be LGBTQ+. Ten years later, he met Matthew.
"From there, it was just like, he's my person," Matthew Marrero said. "He heard me and saw me the way I've always wanted to be heard and seen. Within a month of us talking, I had written in journal that this man is going to be my husband, I'm going to spend the rest of my life with this man. He's the love of my life and I am lost without him."
Allen Dabrio Marrero has been in detention since ICE officers took him into custody at that hearing last week but has been granted a stay that's keeping him from being deported, for now.
The couple is waiting for the chance to tell a judge this was a simple oversight, and that he should be home for Christmas.
"The way the narrative has been spun to the general public is that they're going after the worst of the worst. And that is not true," Matthew Marrero said. "My husband is a contributing member to society, is proud to want to be an American."
He's has been visiting Allen Dabrio Marrero at Newark's Delaney Hall, which he calls eye-opening.
"The families, and the babies, and the people who are sitting out in the cold and the rain, just to get a glimpse of their loved one. This is wrong. This is wrong," Matthew Marrero said.
In the meantime, Middle Collegiate Church, of which the Marreros are members, is rallying around the couple.
A GoFundMe page has also been started to help the couple.
Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin released the following statement:
"ICE arrested Allan Michael Dabrio, an illegal alien from the Cayman Islands, on November 24, 2025. He entered the United States on a tourist visa that required him to depart the United States by September 8, 2013. After he failed to show up for his immigration hearing, a judge ordered him a final order of removal in 2022. He received full due process. We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home app. The U.S. taxpayers are generously offering illegal aliens $1,000 and a free flight home. If illegal aliens use the CBP Home app to self-deport, they reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream."
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