Heury Gomez’s family waited in silence inside a Midtown Manhattan apartment, his aunt peering through the peephole every 30 seconds to see if the 43-year-old was approaching. Seniors and children were among those who crowded the small hallway waiting to catch a glimpse of their loved one and embrace him.
Then the door slowly opened.
“Welcome home!” Voices cried out in unison.
Gomez’s eyes lit up. A young child ran into his arms, and Gomez’s sister broke down into profuse, uncontrolled tears. Even the 16-year-old family dog greeted him warmly. He finally came home after being kept for months in an ICE detention center outside of New York, despite the fact that he has a valid green card in good standing.
Gomez, a green card holder, had been training to become the permanent caregiver for his 18-year-old son Noah, who is nonverbal and lives with special needs, when federal agents arrested him on Aug. 5 of this year. The arrest came months after a judge awarded him sole custody of the teen.
Days later, on Aug. 19, he was shackled and sent to a detention center in Michigan, hundreds of miles away. At that moment, alone and confused, he thought he was being deported.
“They brought me to a room where there were a bunch of other [detainees] and they were all chained up, and they chained me up as well. They put me on a flight and I had no idea where I was being taken,” Gomez recalled. “I was very nervous because I didn’t know where I was being taken to.”
Stuck in ICE captivity
Gomez would be held in Michigan for nearly four months. He said the environment was a hellhole.
According to his cousin Carolina Zapata, Gomez entered the country legally and has been a green card holder for the better part of two decades — yet found himself the target of ICE based on two near-decade-old misdemeanors. Although Gomez maintained his innocence, he was nonetheless convicted in 2017 on attempted assault in the third degree and attempted petit larceny for a single incident dating back to 2015.
His family says he spent 20 days in jail for a crime, completed probation, and paid the fines associated with it.
While inside the ICE detention center, despite the minor nature of his crime, Gomez was forced to wear a red uniform, while others with no criminal history wore blue.
“I saw a lot of blues, I don’t understand what happened with the red uniform, because I have a minor conviction, and you’re mixing me with people who have way more serious crimes,” Gomez said.
He added that life was hard being placed in detention with serious criminals. In one incident, he shared that he was set upon by other inmates, and when he defended himself, he was placed in solitary confinement for several weeks. He also revealed that some of the food he was given — some beans — was infested with worms. He said he also lost some hair due to stress.
Securing his freedom
As Gomez languished on the inside, Zapata got to work advocating for him outside.
Speaking to amNewYork in September, Zapata both raised awareness and started a GoFundMe for Gomez, garnering thousands of dollars for his legal fees, something she says was instrumental in ultimately securing his release.
“One of the things I’ve definitely learned coming out of this experience is that having an excellent defense team is so key, and that’s what’s actually really sad about the situation. The community that’s being targeted is vulnerable, and they don’t have the resources to pay for this,” Zapata said. “Opening that GoFundMe was crucial in many ways, because not only did the funds cover his legal fees, but there were other financial implications that I hadn’t even considered when I opened up the GoFundMe.”
Thanks to both the financial support and the public interest, a judge signed off on his release last week. According to Gomez, even the guards congratulated him since he said many of those held within the depths of North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin rarely leave unless it is through deportation.
On the morning of Nov. 22, Gomez reunited with Zapata in New York for the first time at Floridita, a diner in Washington Heights. After eating breakfast, his first order of business would be to visit his elderly mother. Due to her health concerns, the family had not told her that her son had been arrested.
“I thank God for everything for giving me the opportunity with my family,” Gomez said. “So grateful to be reunited with my family.”
Despite the joyful occasion, Gomez seemed to have a sense of sadness in his gaze.
amNewYork was with Gomez and Zapata as they made their way to the Bronx and knocked on his mother’s door. He burst inside and gripped his mother tightly. Wrapping her arm around his waist, she complained to her son.
“You don’t love me anymore, you don’t come to visit me no more,” she said in Spanish — blissfully unaware of where her son had been for so long.
Later that night, after his family gave him the surprise welcome home, he took a solemn moment alone in his room. Out of his suitcase, he lifted a plastic bag in which ICE had confiscated all of his jewelry. Placing it on his bed, he tore open the plastic and clasped a chain around his neck.
“Let me go be with my family,” he said softly to himself.
In the living room, they stood in a circle around homemade meals they prepared and prayed, thanking God for his safe return. Even Zapata, who spearheaded Gomez’s journey to release, credited everything to a higher power.
“I had to surrender a lot of this to God. I feel like, God, I owe this to him, because he illuminated me like I’m just an instrument for God’s work,” Zapata said. “The way everything played out, it was literally God’s hand in it.”
Gomez himself said the experience changed his mind, stating that until he was arrested, he believed that ICE was only targeting serious criminals until they came for him.
For the future, he says he looks forward to retaining his job as a night porter at The New School University, while also seeing his son again. He also says he wants to use his experience to help others.
“I really wanted to help other people, especially because I have seen so many people in there that have been detained just simply because they entered the country illegally, but have never actually committed a crime,” Gomez said. “I feel like I have the responsibility to come back to the community and help others.”
→ Continue reading at amNY
