Immigrants who are crime victims and waiting for visas now face deportation

The eyes of Domingo Mendoza Méndez fill up with tears because he says that he has not seen his family since July 10, when he went to an appointment with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and was detained.

“I am in progress for a visa u and they have detained me, but I do not know why they hold me. I am all their rules,” said Mendoza Méndez, a 45 -year -old Mexican immigrant, in a video call with Nottias Telemundo of the Correctional Establishment of the County of Freeborn in Minnesota.

In 2013, Mendoza Méndez, who had crossed the border 13 years earlier, was the victim of a violent flight in Minnesota, which was recorded and investigated by the police. The type of aggression he suffered is included in the list of crimes of American citizenship and immigration services (USCIS) which qualify for a visa U, a measure designed for victims of criminal acts in the United States who agree to help the authorities to investigate crime.

However, as part of the Trump administration’s mass expulsion campaign, some immigrants who applied and are waiting for a visa was detained.

“I feel sad. I try to gather my strength, but there are so many things here. Many of us have violated our rights,” said the married father of three children, adding that he was obtaining a visa since 2021.

Magdalena Metelska, the lawyer for immigration dealing with the Mendoza Méndez affair, said that other administrations had not taken coercive measures against the victims who ask for U -shaped visas, but that has changed with the second Trump administration.

Now, if someone has a visa pending and even received a notification of a work permit, like Mendoza Méndez, “it doesn’t really matter because these people are also arrested and detained,” she said.

In April, Jose Madrid-Leiva, a Guatemalan immigrant who was waiting for a Visa U, was detained in Kansas City. The same month, the Guatemalan Immigrant Gerber Mazariegos Dávila, who was postponed for a visa U, was held by ice agents in Atlanta. In June, Esvin Juárez and Rosmeri Miranda-López, a Guatemalan couple with four children whose visa request in U had been approved was expelled in their country of origin.

An advantage and a tool for applying the law – with a large backlog

The Visa U was created by Congress in 2000 through victims of trafficking and violence protection ACT (TVPA) and is reserved for the victims of certain crimes which “underwent physical or mental damage” and which cooperate with the police or the government officials “in the investigation or the continuation of criminal activity”, according to USCIS.

“The Visa U is a humanitarian advantage, but it is also a tool for applying the law,” said Hannah Shapiro, a lawyer supervising Legal Aid Society, which provides legal aid to families and low -income individuals. “He obliges the person to cooperate in an investigation or a prosecution linked to Visa qualification offenses, which can be recent or occurred several years ago.”

She added that the visa was designed to make communities safer by encouraging the undocumented survivors of domestic violence and other crimes to contact the police and cooperate in surveys, thus contributing to attackers.

The advantages of the Visa U understand the possibility of living and working in the United States and a chance to request a green card in the future. However, as with other visas for victims of abuse and crime, such as the special program for immigrant minors, the United States government only gives 10,000 visas U per year, which has created a considerable rear for candidates.

There are more than 300,000 people waiting, in addition to qualified family members, said Shapiro, and the process can take up to 15 or 20 years.

According to USCIS figures, the government obtained 266,293 primary visa for the 2017 financial year in the second quarter of the fiscal 2025.

“This means that if all visa -U requests were interrupted today, it would take more than 20 years to resolve the unanswered cases. Since the 2009 fiscal year, the USCIS has increased in 2013 for pending cases,” the USCIS said in a statement sent to Noticias Telemundo.

Since June 2021, the USCIS has granted “determinations of good faith” – official documents which have valued the legitimacy of the visa u and protect the candidates from the expulsion while granting them a work authorization.

Recent changes, less protection

Immigration experts and lawyers claim that Trump administration now says that “good faith determinations” do not protect people from expulsion, leading to detention from candidates to a visa.

“I have always worn the letter of good faith in my wallet that Ice had approved for me, which indicates that I have the right to be in the United States without fear of expulsion. But the agents told me that they no longer respected that. And they took me, “said Mendoza Méndez.

Matthew J. Trageser, head of the USCIS public affairs office, said in a statement at Noticias Telemundo that “a determination of good faith on a request for status of non-immigrant from U does not protect a foreign national against the application of immigration”.

Tragesser has also said that “the U Visa program is exploited by foreign crooks and criminals, their corrupt lawyers and police officers”, although it has not provided figures or specific cases.

Last month, USCIS announced that five men of Louisiana, including four agents of the application of active and retired laws, had been accused of corruption, conspiracy to commit fraud by visa and fraud by mail following a federal investigation which discovered a model of inconsistencies in the requests of Visa U. According to the agency, the defendants submitted false police reporters so that foreign nationals were victims of thefts can request U U.

A distance from the protections of the victims

Although the fundamental structure of the Visa U program remains intact (since it was created by Congress, it cannot be eliminated unilaterally), several experts and candidates say that its practical implementation has become much more difficult.

“Shortly after Trump’s return to power, they repealed a memorandum who considered victim status as a discretionary factor which, except in attenuating or more serious circumstances, should not be a priority for withdrawal. This is even true if their case was waiting and had not been approved,” said Shapiro.

The lawyer refers to the memorandum 11005.4, which modified the agency’s approach to the application of immigration linked to candidates for the U -visas. Among other things, this new directive eliminates the proactive identification of the victims, so that ice officers are no longer required to seek indices or evidence suggesting that a foreign national is the victim of a crime during the implementation decisions.

“With the new department of internal security, these cases are reopened. Thus, the people who helped the police, who had undergone a certain type of crime, or who have been victims of a very serious crime are now in the expulsion procedure,” said immigration lawyer Benjamín Osorio.

One of these cases is that of Fredy Hernández Cedillos, a Salvadoran immigrant who has lived in the United States since 2009. He was injured in a violent flight in Virginia in 2010 and has been waiting for a visa U since 2020.

“My lawyer has received a letter from DHS saying that they were going to reopen our case, even if we have already gone to court. So our fear is that we cannot return to our country because the gangs are looking for us. And we do not know if we will have to leave our children,” said Cedillos.

American law allows migrants to apply for this visa to continue the visa process in the countries to which they were expelled. However, lawyers like Osorio warn against the difficulties linked to this process.

“Yes, they can continue their procedures. But the problem is that if the waiting list lasts more than 10 years, people have to spend this time in the country where they have been expelled, and they are often in danger. In addition, if they have American children, they will suffer without their parents, because the deportation affects the whole family,” said Osorio.

‘Injured by these delays’

The accusation of these cases made the headlines in January, when a Michigan court judged that a group of crime survivors asking U -visas could go ahead with a prosecution against the Ministry of Internal Security for unjustifiable delays to receive initial determinations in good faith, which, among others, prevented them from accessing losses of work.

“We have several customers who waited almost six years without updates or news, not even an initial recognition of the legitimacy of their case. The court ruled that our customers had been injured by these delays,” said Meredith Luneack, lawyer for the plaintiffs, in a statement. This case is still being examined by the American district court in the Oriental District of Michigan.

The Trump administration required a drastic increase in the detention and deportations of immigrants, with a daily quota of 3,000 arrests. Shapiro, as well as other experts, said that this pressure led to the detention of hundreds of people during his appearance of an immigration court.

“You want to do things and work in this country, but what I see is that the government wants to withdraw as many people as possible. Fear goes to court and, once we are there, they will not let us go out,” said Cedillos.

Mendoza Méndez remains detained while he is fighting in court to stay in the United States in a broken voice, he said that he had not lost hope of returning to his family in Minnesota. “I always have faith and I know that we can go through all of this,” he said.

A previous version of this article was published for the first time in Noticias Telemundo.