Long Island brothers deported to El Salvador after routine ICE check-in appointment, attorney says
Two young men deported to El Salvador after living on Long Island for nearly a decade are pleading for a second chance.
Their lives were abruptly upended during a routine check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"We are not a threat to the country"
Brothers Jose and Josue Trejo Lopez were born in El Salvador, but they hardly know the country and have no family there. Their mother brought them to the U.S. nine years ago in an effort to escape gang violence.
Asylum was repeatedly denied, but during appeals to legalize their status, the brothers went to U.S. schools, earned diplomas and had dreams of careers as mechanics.
Earlier this year, their mother took them to a routine ICE check-in appointment, where the brothers said they were shackled and detained.
"I think it is inhumane to have somebody in shackles sitting down for hours, not letting them use the bathroom, not letting them eat," Jose Trejo Lopez, 20, said.
Weeks later, they landed in El Salvador, where they didn't know anyone.
"We are not a threat to the country. We are not criminals. We are Christians," Jose Trejo Lopez said. "We have basically respect every single law."
"We always followed the law, and I don't understand why it happened," Josue Trejo Lopez, 19, said.
Their mother was not deported
"I ask that they may please another opportunity to return to this country because they are good people. They have no records," mother Alma Lopez said in Spanish.
"I want to be with my little brother, I want to be with my mom"
Their attorney said an appeal for special status was pending as children who came to the U.S. through no fault of their own.
"This is the only home that they know. They have absolutely no family in El Salvador, not even extended family, so to take these children and to treat them in such an inhumane and cruel manner and then to remove them while they have relief pending is really a disgrace to our country," attorney Ala Amoachi said.
"I was hoping for them to see us for who we are right now, not for who we were and how we came to the country," Jose Trejo Lopez said.
The brothers' attorney has filed emergency appeals on humanitarian grounds, but rulings could take more than a year.
In the meantime, the two brothers are living with a family friend they just met, but they're without phones, money or IDs.
Josue Trejo Lopez was about to graduate high school next week.
"Not here [in El Salvador] for like nine years, so I don't know nobody, I don't go out. I'm always just sitting, just sad because I want to be with my little brother. I want to be with my mom," he said.
Rep. Andrew Garbarino, who represents the Islip area where the brothers were living, said his office is in contact with ICE to better understand the circumstances.
