Rodrigo (a pseudonym), 32, from Zamora, Michoacán, lived in Spokane, Washington, and paid taxes every one of his 17 years there. He has been married to a U.S. citizen since 2016, her petition for his green card has been pending since about 2019, and his children grew up in the United States. ICE held him for about eight months, at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, and then in Florence, Arizona, and denied him bond. "What did we do wrong to not deserve a bond, to get out of that place and fight our case outside?" he asked. With no lawyer, he represented himself on an application to stay in the country, then withdrew it because he could no longer bear detention. "They keep you in that place to destroy you, to make you throw your whole case in the garbage," he said. "It's so much despair. I said: no more." When he was sick with fever and bone pain he waited one to two weeks to be seen, and his hair fell out from the stress; before saying goodbye, he showed HUMSI the bare patches. He was flown to Tapachula, Mexico, in chains that were taken off about an hour before landing. "That's how they bring you, while you're dying in there." His wife is now paying their rent alone. HUMSI interviewed him in Tapachula in September 2026.