After nearly seven months in detention, Maine man granted permanent residency

“My mind was thinking, ‘This is a dream,’” he told Maine Morning Star. 

Federal immigration agents detained Marcos, an asylum seeker from Brazil, and another man who he was giving a ride to work on Jan. 20 in Portland, at the start of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s large-scale operation in the state. 

Marcos was on the phone with his wife at the time. She said she heard one of the agents say they were only looking for “extreme criminals” that had outstanding arrest warrants. Her husband responded that he had a pending asylum case and no warrants, she said, but the agents took him and the other man. 

During his months-long detention, he recounted the conditions to his wife, who explained that he was fed meals that resembled dog food and brown water that made him sick. She said he had by far the worst experience at the Arizona Removal Operations Coordination Center, which is supposed to be a short-term holding facility at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport.

There, he was held with dozens of other people in a room with no beds and a toilet that would overflow, spreading fecal matter on the floor, which caused him to develop a rash, his wife said. She said authorities continuously tried to get Marcos to agree to leave the country voluntarily. It was in those conditions at the Mesa detention center where the other man agreed to do so. 

Marcos remained at Mesa, even as his wife feared he would die of sepsis. He was eventually transferred to ICE’s Central Arizona Florence Correctional Complex, where he’d been since February and was released Thursday afternoon. 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security disputed Marcos’ account of the conditions, calling accusations of overcrowding false and writing that ICE provides all detainees with three meals a day, clean water and showers.

“ICE maintains detention standards that are higher than those of most U.S. prisons holding actual U.S. citizens,” an unnamed spokesperson wrote.

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ICE and DHS did not respond to requests for comment about why Marcos was detained. 

A lawyer in Brazil who then worked as a general contractor in the U.S., Marcos fled his home country in 2021, after officials there had threatened him during a dispute over the ownership of his clients’ properties, according to written testimony in his asylum interview documents.  

A U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officer determined that he had credible fear of persecution or torture, allowing his case to move forward. He settled in Maine to live near his child and former spouse. Shortly after, he met his now-wife. They married in 2023, after which she said they filed an I-130 application, the first step to help an eligible family member get a green card.

Fighting for release

Like many people detained in Maine, Marcos was swiftly taken out of state, first held in Massachusetts where his lawyer filed a habeas corpus petition to try to get him released, to no avail. The filing of these petitions across the country have hit a historic high amid President Donald Trump’s push for mass deportations. 

When Marcos eventually landed in Arizona, Alessia sought out the help of local Democratic congressional candidate Elizabeth Lee, after seeing her advocate for another detainee experiencing medical neglect. Lee, who is a nurse, said she was “absolutely astonished” when reviewing Marcos’ medical records from detention, particularly the high level of pain he reported from a tooth abscess, around the same time another detainee in the same facility had died from one. 

Nearly every two weeks for the past several months, Lee has attended Marcos’ hearings and helped with tasks such as picking up his medical clearance for release, which had to be hand delivered. 

“I’m not sure what family members are supposed to do who don’t live within proximity or who don’t have means to drive an hour one way to pick a document up,” Lee said. 

Describing the long stretch of barbed wire outside the Arizona facility and the multiple layers of double-locked doors she passed through to attend his hearings, Lee said, “Walking inside these facilities is chilling — the cruelty of it, but the expense of it is wild to look at.”

Trump and congressional Republicans have passed approximately $240 billion in immigration funding during his second term so far, including a roughly $70 billion package in June following a historic investment of $170 billion last summer in the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

Federal immigration agents arrested more people in July than in any previous month of Trump’s administration, though more arrests don’t necessarily translate into achieving the president’s goal of mass deportations, as Marcos’ and other cases show.  

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Following arrests in Maine and elsewhere, DHS has continued to say they are targeting “the worst of the worst.” But less than a third of current detainees have a criminal conviction and 40% have never been accused of anything but non-criminal immigration violations, according to data through early July reviewed by Maine Morning Star’s sister outlet Stateline.

While immigration agencies are flush with cash, Trump’s firing of immigration judges has at times caused further delays in processing cases. 

“We have been seeing a lot of chaos occurring in immigration processing,” Ruben Torres with the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition said. “Some cases that have been pending for years are suddenly getting moved up and bundled into a mega master hearing.” 

At Marcos’ latest hearing on Wednesday, Judge Victoria Levin of the Executive Office for Immigration Review adjusted his status to lawful permanent resident, clearing him for release. 

Speaking from the airport mere minutes before getting the call from her husband on Thursday that he was out, his wife remained skeptical he would actually be released until the moment it happened. 

“I’ve planned so much for all the things that could possibly go wrong that I can’t even picture the right things. It’s very surreal,” she said, as strangers, overhearing her story, asked to give her hugs. “Until I can put my hands on my husband, I’m waiting for whatever bomb they’re going to give me.” 

Imprint of detention

Ensuring Marcos’ safety after his release, much like the push for his release, was a group effort. 

Current law does not require ICE to notify family when a detainee is transferred or released.

Staff at the facility dropped him and other immigrants who had been released from detention on Thursday at a local church, which has become known for providing a place to make calls and wait for loved ones to pick them up. Marcos was not given back his phone, passport or driver’s license, he said.

With his wife still en route, Lee picked him up from the church. “He was all smiles,” she said. 

One of the other recently released immigrants carried a large sack filled with paperwork. He had defended his own case while in detention for years without a lawyer, Lee said. Another man kept lifting his hands above his head and shaking them to show he wasn’t in handcuffs. 

But the imprint of detention remains. 

Lee and Marcos stopped for clothes, since he was released in the “Gaspar Contracting” T-shirt he was detained in back in January. But Marcos was nervous being in Walmart, explaining that it’ll still be weeks until he gets his physical green card. 

While they are now back together, his wife is also fearful of the flight home and risks that remain once they are back, given the recent detentions at the Portland airport and outside the courthouse. 

Marcos said he is eager for good meals but he’s cautious about returning to a normal diet too quickly, having been warned by other recently released immigrants of gastrointestinal problems after months of detention food. 

Still, the first thing the New Englander requested was a coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts, accepting the stomach ache that came later.

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