Deporting Love
On November 28, 2005, Luis Enrique Gonzalez-Ortiz walked across the U.S. border and surrendered to U.S. immigration. Fearful of gang recruitment, extortion, crime, and violence that had ravaged his home country of El Salvador, the 19-year-old left everything he knew and loved behind. Never to see his family again, Enrique made the long trek to the United States in search of safety and opportunity. Nineteen years later -- and a decade of marriage to U.S. citizen same-sex spouse Harlon J. Wilson -- the couple is (still, as of July 2024) fighting an unjust deportation.
With historical political unrest ravaging the nation, worsening prospects ahead for the November 2024 election, and a real-and-present danger of civil unrest, the couple continues the fight for both measurable and sustainable efforts toward human-centered immigration reform and LGBTQ+ equality.
Representing millions of voiceless undocumented immigrants facing persecution and unprecedented threats of physical harm, discrimination, and unjust deportations, the couple has put everything on the line with a demand for United States policymakers to CEASE AND DESIST the unequal, inhumane, and deadly political pandering that has immigrant families like theirs the victims of political fodder.
With millions of migrant families at risk of deadly retaliation in cities across the nation, Enrique & Harlon take a stand against inhumane policies and a decades-long political pandering and harmful policy shifts of each administration, leaving millions of migrant families caught in the dangerous crossfire.
Underrepresented, living in perpetual fear, and harmed by the political stalemate, public pandering for political gain, and the whiplash of policy shifts, while also facing the severe risk of unjust deportations, the threat of physical harm or death, incarceration in for-profit detention centers, and inhumane political stunts (i.e., illegally transporting migrants from the U.S. border to sanctuary cities in an organized effort of political showmanship), the couple continues to advocate for human-centered immigration reform.
While politicians seek to capture battleground states, migrants face family separations and deplorable conditions when detained. Fleeing for safety and seeking asylum from harm, under-represented migrants are transported from one incarceration center to another to face inhumane conditions in government-sponsored for-profit detention centers. Meanwhile, loved ones are left uninformed about their whereabouts and well-being. For nearly a decade, the couple has battled excruciating physical and emotional harm, caught between lies and deception, empty promises and shifting policies, and inhumane, unfair, and unequal U.S. immigration status, the couple has taken their case to the Federal courts and while continuing their demand for human-centered immigration reform.
Ten years later and (STILL) awaiting an April 8, 2020, asylum hearing and the subsequent processing of yet another of the many applications and forms (barriers to due process), the couple has faced more than three years of delays in processing the highly anticipated waiver application that would allow Enrique to return to El Salvador for final processing of the green card and subsequent "legal" re-entry to the U.S. As of July 4, 2024, Enrique and Harlon's lives remain between the political stalemate. This is their story.
Be a force for positive change! Subscribe to DeportingLove.com and support the call for human-centered immigration reform.
Read the unbelievable full story!
Subscribe and Share!
