A South Florida woman who has cancer and is threatened with deportation to her native Honduras won a temporary reprieve Monday that was welcomed by immigration advocates warning of "silent raids."
"I am happy, I am relieved," Reina Gomez said as she greeted supporters who waited for her outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Miramar.
While Gomez's battle to stay in the U.S. is far from settled, advocates for immigrant rights said the delay in deciding on her asylum petition comes as undocumented immigrants face increased raids at home and arrests during regular check-ins with ICE officials.
Among about two dozen supporters who watched Gomez walk into the ICE offices Monday were some who feared that she could be detained.
"We are happy to see Reina come back to her community and to her job as a domestic worker where she contributes to the well-being and the economy of several families in South Florida," Marcia Olivo, executive director of the Miami Workers Center, said in a statement. "We will keep fighting for Reina and for all immigrants. We need real immigration reform that grants a path to citizenship, not an unfair system that tricks people into reporting to authorities in order to speed their deportation and tear them apart from their families."
Under a crackdown on undocumented immigrants announced by the Trump administration, arrests of people in the U.S. illegally increased 38 percent in the first four months of 2017, compared with the number arrested during the first four months last year.
Some of those arrests were made during "silent raids," in which immigrants summoned to ICE offices for interviews are taken into custody and deported.
Among the supporters who greeted Gomez as she left the ICE office was Maria Bilbao, an organizer for the group United We Dream. "This is an example of what our community can do to stop deportations," she said. "Hiding is not an option. We have to stand up, organize and fight back."
Later, in a statement, said: "It's important to keep exposing what is really going on at this ICE office where people go in but never come back out."
Ana Quiros, a lawyer with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami who represents Gomez, said ICE officials indicated that a decision on Gomez's asylum request would come in two weeks.
If turned down, Gomez could be deported in October.
Gomez, a domestic worker who has lived in South Florida for 15 years, said she has been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia that could not be properly treated in Honduras because of a lack of medicines. She has said being sent back to Central America would be a death sentence.
Gomez said she fled violence and an abusive relationship in Honduras and, since coming to the U.S, has worked to become a productive resident.
Frank Corbishley, an Episcopal chaplain at St. Bede Chapel at University of Miami, said he got to know Gomez when she was involved in union activities at the university.
"She is a good person who has grown into a strong person," he said. "I am here to show solidarity with her, and lend moral support."
