On Sept. 16, Barbara Gomes Marques May and her husband arrived at the downtown Los Angeles federal immigration building for what they believed would be the final step in Marques May’s process to obtain her green card.
The interview process had gone smoothly, Tucker May recalled. But toward the end, a federal immigration official she had met with said he needed Marques May to follow him so he could photocopy her passport, he recalled. She and her husband believed the trip would be brief and they would be able to leave.
Rather, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent arrested Marques May, a 38-year-old Brazilian national who has no criminal record and works as a film director in Los Angeles. She was handcuffed and transferred to the ICE facility in Adelanto in San Bernardino County before being sent to Louisiana. Meanwhile, her husband and her lawyer scrambled to try to stop her deportation.
on Wednesday, Marques May was scheduled to board a 6 a.m. flight to her home country, but her attorney was able to file a motion to reopen her deportation proceedings and keep her on U.S. soil, at least temporarily. As of Thursday, she had been moved to Arizona and will return to california while her deportation proceedings remain open, her attorney said.
“It’s very much an ongoing nightmare,” Tucker may said in an interview this week.Department of Homeland security officials did not respond to a request for comment about marques May’s case.
According to her attorney, Marcelo Gondim, Marques May arrived in the U.S. in 2018 on a tourist visa. Gondim said she applied for an extension but was denied. She ended up overstaying her visa, he said, and in 2019, the government sent her a notice to appear for a court hearing to begin deportation proceedings.
But Marques May had moved and had not kept her address up to date with immigration court, and so the letter never reached her, Gondim said. Because she failed to appear, the government issued a removal order against her.
In April 2025, the couple got married and she began the process to apply for a green card, Gondim said. Under the Biden governance, he said, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would have notified Marques May that there was a removal order issued for her and directed her on how to get it resolved.
Overstaying a visa is not considered a criminal offense, and penalties are issued if the person leaves the country. In cases involving married couples, Gondim said, there’s an automatic forgiveness for overstaying a visa, relief that Marques May would’ve been eligible for.
But the Trump administration has rather used courthouses and Citizenship and Immigration Services offices to engage in mass arrests of migrants attending mandated hearings and appointments.Soon, the USCIS will have expanded powers.
In September, the Department of Homeland Security issued a new directive that will allow the agency – which administers and oversees immigration applications – to enforce immigration law with “special agents.” The order goes into effect Monday.
“USCIS will have greater capacity to support DHS efforts by handling investigations from start to finish, rather of referring certain cases to homeland Security Examination within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” the agency said in a statement.