By Billal RahmanShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberA green card applicant and U.K. citizen was reportedly detained by federal immigration authorities while on a bike ride in Havre, Montana.
Justin Grzeb, who married U.S. citizen Carla Kinney in April, was arrested by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent while out shopping for the holidays, KTVQ reported.
Newsweek has contacted the family via social media and the Department of Homeland Security for comment via email.
Why It Matters
The Trump administration is rapidly moving forward with plans it describes as the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, a central part of the Republicans’ hard-line immigration agenda. Under the GOP’s blueprint for aggressive, widespread mass deportations, immigrants with valid documentation, including green card holders, applicants, and visa holders, have been detained due to a lack of legal status or prior criminal records.
...What To Know
Kinney told KTVQ that her husband called her shortly after the encounter, saying he had been taken to the Havre CBP office and asking her to bring his passport and paperwork.
Authorities reportedly told Kinney that Grzeb would be detained and potentially deported, despite his Green Card application being filed correctly and his biometrics appointment being completed, according to the outlet.
"I just want him released to come home to me and our family," Kinney told KTVQ.
Grzeb’s immigration attorney, Randall Caudle, told KTVQ that applicants with pending marriage-based Green Cards are legally allowed to remain in the U.S. while the application is processed.
"There’s a lot of people that say immigrants need to go through the ‘correct process,’" Caudle told the outlet. "Well, Justin and Carla were going through the correct process. They were doing everything the way they're supposed to do it. And yet we still have CBP coming after people that are doing it the right way. It's kind of insane right now, just what we're seeing ICE and CBP do. They're feeling empowered. Unfortunately, we're seeing massive constitutional violations."
What People Are Saying
"They told me even though all my paperwork was in order, everything had been done right, they would not release my husband," Kinney told KTVQ. "They were going to arrest him, detain him and deport him. Based on what the Border Patrol agent was telling me, he’d been actively looking for my husband for a while. He had a lot of personal information about me and about my husband, which concerned me because the only way he could have had it to that extent is if he had pulled it off our Green Card application. I cannot speak to the actual officer's actions, but from my perspective, it really feels like we got targeted for going through it the right way."
"The government’s position…since before I started practicing 30 years ago, has been that once you file a Green Card application, you are legally present in the U.S. while it is pending until it either gets approved or denied," Caudle told KTVQ.
What Happens Next
Kinney told KTVQ that her husband is being transported to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. He is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge, who will decide whether he can return to Montana to continue the process to obtain legal residency or face deportation.
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