JESUS TERAN FLED PERSECUTION in Venezuela, seeking asylum in the United States in 2021 and joining his family in Imperial, Pennsylvania, half an hour outside Pittsburgh. He was living a version of the American Dream. Beloved by his community, he gave food to the needy, and when they created a communal garden to forge ties between a mostly white church and his more Latino one, Jesus was there, tilling the ground, repairing a faulty tiller, and watering the plants twice a week, according to the Observer-Reporter, a local paper.
Jesus, 35, trained in Venezuela to be a civil engineer. But he lacked the credentials or English skills to pursue that profession in the United States. So he made do by working at convenience stores and delivering with DoorDash. He did this all while learning English, his former teacher Barbara Hopkins told me.
It seemed his hard work was paying off when he was accepted into the carpenters apprenticeship program at the KML Carpenters Training Center in the winter of 2024. The promise of working construction wasn’t as alluring as being an engineer, but it was a step up the ladder. His family was elated.
Then, this year, Jesus’s life was thrown into chaos. On July 8, he went for a customary check-in at the ICE Pittsburgh field office. But he was detained and sent to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Phillipsburg, three hours away from where the family lives.
Jesus’s detention resembles thousands of other stories that are quickly defining American society in the age of Trump deportations. It has shaken his church community and inspired local leaders, union representatives, and Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh retired Bishop David Zubik to write more than twenty letters on his behalf.
“It’s been a heartbreaking experience. He’s been faithfully appearing at ICE appointments for more than four years, he was following the protocols of ICE, he was complying with everything he’s supposed to do. All of a sudden, he’s detained,” said Rev. Jay Donahue of St. Oscar Romero Parish, where Jesus’s family are members. “Jesus is not someone who should be subjected to this undignified experience that he’s going through. It’s a shame the way they are treating him; it is inhumane. It’s been inspiring to see the community rally around Jesus and to recognize what he means to our community.”
Jesus was denied entry into the United States in 2015, before successfully entering six years later. Still, that previous attempt to enter reduces the chances that his asylum claim would be successful. Further, a successful asylum process can take years.
Charles Kuck, a top immigration lawyer, said that even if Jesus’s asylum claim were denied during the Biden administration, it wasn’t a guarantee that he would have to be immediately removed. There are cases where people receive a withholding of removal, Kuck explained, “when they don’t want to deport you, if you’re a good person.”
Jesus’s family declined multiple requests to speak for this story, so additional details about his case are difficult to glean. But what I discovered when talking to friends, colleagues, and even his former teachers