Trump-voting Canadian woman held by ICE: “I want my vote back”

Thirty-five years ago, Cynthia Olivera came to the United States from Toronto as a ten-year-old child with her parents. She grew up in the US attending elementary, junior high and high school. However, she never acquired legal status.

A couple weeks ago, the wife of a US citizen and mother of three US-citizen children had hoped to finally secure her green card. But at her interview the California resident was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement instead and is now being detained in an ICE facility in El Paso, Texas.

Trump supporter awaiting deportation in ICE detention

Olivera, who has no state of federal criminal record according to ABC10 News, and her husband supported Donald Trump’s policy of deporting criminals from the US. “The only crime I committed is to love this country and to work hard and to provide for my kids,” she told ABC10 News.

However, the Department of Homeland Security says that Olivera broke the law in 1999 when she “illegally” crossed the border after having been previously deported, thus making her a criminal.

That year she was expelled from the US when she tried to cross the border at the Buffalo port of entry. Pregnant at the time, she admitted to agents that she had been living in the US without documentation and that she planned to give birth to her child in the United States.

A few months later, she entered the US through the San Diego border crossing with her husband despite having received a five-year ban because she had been deported. She says that border agents waved them through and that she didn’t “illegally” enter the US.

For the past 25 years she has worked and paid taxes in the US. She hadn’t tried to fix her residency status until now as she had been waiting for her children to be older. She has two adult sons and a 15-year-old daughter.

She was granted a work permit under the Biden administration last year. Olivera had hoped to finalize the acquisition of her green card when she went in for her fateful interview on 13 June. However, after answering the questions asked of her, the interviewer left the room and ICE agents entered and put her in handcuffs.

Her husband told ABC10 that he now regrets having voted for Trump. “We feel totally blindsided, betrayed. I want my vote back.”

They are trying to find a way to get her out of the ICE detention facility and on a flight to Canada, which she says she will gladly pay for herself. However, Francisco says that he can’t get through to anyone from ICE to help expedite her deportation.

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