Bryan José Rojas Galofre wanted to give his wife a lovely honeymoon to see the beach for the first time and perhaps a glimpse of President Donald Trump, whom she supports.

Their January 2025 road trip from Wisconsin to Miami, however, turned into a nightmare, according to the couple: Rojas, a Venezuelan immigrant whose wife and young children are U.S. citizens, was detained following a stop at a Trump hotel security checkpoint.

He spent more than three months in ICE custody in Florida. Rojas also faced accusations of gang affiliation; he says he feared being deported to El Salvador and lost his stable job and work permit. The family says they’ve lost their house and car, had to deplete Rojas’ 401(k) and are in debt.

“In the end, it was a bad decision,” Rojas, 34, said in an interview with Noticias Telemundo about wanting to take his wife, Socorro Zaragosa, to the Trump National Doral hotel. They wanted to see if they could catch a glimpse of the president, who was there inaugurating a Republican retreat on Jan. 27. Rojas said they had made reservations to stay at that hotel starting the following day.

Zaragosa, 22, a U.S. citizen, was raised in Wisconsin in a family that supports the current U.S. president.

“I’m his fan. I believe Trump is a good president,” she said. However, Zaragosa noted this political loyalty co-exists with the disappointment she feels over the months her husband spent in detention.

“What he is doing to migrants isn’t fair,” Zaragosa said of the president. “What happened to my family wasn’t fair.”

From honeymoon to detention

Rojas had arrived in the U.S. in September 2021, during the administration of President Joe Biden. He turned himself in to Border Patrol, telling them he was fleeing Venezuela, and was released while his asylum application was being processed.

Since then, Rojas had been working at a brake disc factory in Wisconsin, where he earned $29 per hour and was promoted to line supervisor.

He married Zaragosa in September 2024 and said he began the process of seeking to adjust his immigration status through family sponsorship just as they were setting off on their honeymoon.

Rojas and Zaragosa decided to head toward the hotel the afternoon of Jan. 27, 2025. As they approached, they encountered a security checkpoint required to access the premises, where agents from the Secret Service and the Doral police searched their vehicle.

Beneath one of their car’s seats, the agents discovered an air pistol, also known as an airsoft gun — a device that fires plastic pellets and is used for sports and recreational purposes. Zaragosa stated that she carried it for personal safety when driving alone, as it bears a resemblance to certain actual firearms. Authorities also found a metal marijuana grinder in the passenger-side glove compartment. The couple was arrested by the local police and charged with one count of possession of drug paraphernalia with intent to use. They pleaded not guilty, and the case remains open.

Rojas claims that when the agents noticed his tattoos — depicting a crown, a Chinese dragon and dollar signs — they separated him from his wife.

“They pulled me out of the car, they checked my tattoos, they started asking if I belonged to a gang, they took photos of me and put me under review to see if I was linked to terrorism,” Rojas said. “At that time, the news surrounding the Tren de Aragua gang was making major headlines.”

Rojas said his tattoos are personal matters and he doesn’t belong to any gangs.

Rojas’ attorney, Tahimi Rengifo, said that at the beginning of the Trump administration, there was a heavy focus on tattoos and their alleged connection to the Tren de Aragua gang, which she said was a “broad generalization — we are talking about young men who got tattoos without even knowing what they meant, and now they are facing serious consequences under this administration.”

In the days that followed, the Department of Homeland Security transferred Rojas to the Federal Detention Center — a jail in downtown Miami — while it verified whether he had ties to Venezuelan gangs. Rojas spent nearly three months on the 13th floor of that prison, where he feared being deported to El Salvador, since many Venezuelan detainees held alongside him were transferred to that country.

Rojas said he and his wife weren’t able to speak to each other for a full month after he was taken into custody.

While Rojas was in detention, Zaragosa was alone with their first child, who was only 6 months old at the time.

“I thought that was it — that my family was over. I thought I would wake up one day and find that I had lost him,” Zaragosa said, “that I would be left all alone with my son.”

Immigration Judge Scott G. Alexander, after reviewing all the evidence, granted Rojas bond on April 18, 2025 — a decision implying that he found Rojas posed neither a danger to the community nor a flight risk. He was released on a $15,000 bond and then transferred to the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach while his family posted the bond and gathered additional documentation. He wasn’t released from detention until May 6, 2025.

“People operate under the assumption that once they win their hearing, they will be released immediately,” Rojas’ lawyer said. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.”

“Bryan had no criminal record whatsoever; he hadn’t committed any crime. He had a pending legal proceeding that, under any previous administration, would not have been an issue,” Rengifo added. “But under this administration, all these small details — the tattoo, the grinder, the BB gun — combined to create a situation that escalated significantly.”

A legal limbo

Rojas’ release did not mark the end of his troubles. His work permit expired during his detention and was not renewed. Nor was he able to renew his driver’s license. The house they had purchased in Wisconsin is now up for sale, and they also had to sell their car. His 401(k) fund was depleted to pay for lawyers and his bail, Rojas said, adding that his debts now exceed $80,000.

“I am in an immigration limbo that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I don’t know how many people are in this situation — people who have posted bond, who have undergone vetting, who have no criminal record, who have been hardworking individuals since the moment they arrived, who have paid their taxes — and yet still have no right to a means of livelihood,” said Rojas.

His next immigration hearing is scheduled for 2028. Such a time frame is not exceptional: According to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, immigration courts currently have a backlog of over 3.38 million active cases, and asylum cases take, on average, more than four years to resolve.

Noticias Telemundo contacted DHS for comment on Rojas’ case. A spokesperson described him as a “criminal illegal alien from Venezuela who was arrested by local authorities January 27, 2025, after he attempted to enter Trump National in Doral, Florida, with an air soft gun. His criminal history includes charges for drug paraphernalia.”

“Under President Trump and Secretary [Markwayne] Mullin, criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.” the spokesperson said.

Court documents tell a different version of Rojas’ case. The bond motion filed before the Pompano Beach immigration court — signed by attorney Johan Gutiérrez and submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice — states that Rojas “has never been convicted of any serious crime, crime involving moral turpitude, or disqualifying drug offense, either in the United States or in any other country in the world,” and was detained “solely because he entered the country irregularly.”

Rojas rejected the description DHS provided of him. “They want to keep smearing my name just to avoid granting me a work permit, thereby denying me my Social Security benefits. It is an outrage against my wife — who is an American citizen — and my two children,” he said.

Regarding the paraphernalia charge cited by DHS, Rojas’ attorney noted that it constitutes a civil infraction under Florida’s marijuana laws — an offense that federal courts have repeatedly determined does not amount to a controlled substance offense and does not trigger adverse immigration consequences.

“In federal terms, this paraphernalia charge is not a crime that renders him inadmissible or ineligible for immigration proceedings. It is not a crime that would make him ineligible for the immigration relief currently pending before the immigration court,” Rengifo said.

In April of this year, Rojas filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties denouncing the conditions of his detention in Miami. In the complaint, Rojas alleged periods of confinement lasting entire days.

“It is a federal prison where they would put you on lockdown for four or five days at a time — unable to speak with your family, eating food slid under the door and deprived of basic necessities. I was terrified, because someone actually died inside there. There were fights,” Rojas alleged. “What I felt while imprisoned was an overwhelming sense of loneliness, anguish and despair.”

The Federal Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on the specifics of Rojas’ case but said that FDC Miami “has not placed detainees on lockdown” and that the facility instead implemented modified operations, which allow controlled movement for access to telephones, computers, recreation and showers. It added that from April to July 2025, an elevator failure led ICE detainees to be placed on a rotating tier schedule allowing “three hours of daily access to phones, showers, recreation and computers” but that legal calls and visits were not disrupted.

The Rojas family’s story unfolds against the backdrop of an administration that has taken steps to significantly restrict immigration to the U.S., including through asylum claims. In September, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told the United Nations General Assembly that the asylum system “has become a huge loophole in our migration laws.”

In November, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ratified a comprehensive asylum rule that raises evidentiary standards, expands the grounds for denial and restricts asylum protections.

Border czar Tom Homan has said that millions of deportations will be necessary and that while raids prioritize people with criminal records, “if you’re in the country illegally, you’re never off the table.”

Rojas’ mother, Bernarda Galofre, claims that during the months her son was detained, the family fell victim to a scam. In her desperate attempt to help her son, she contacted a purported attorney via social media who, she alleges, turned out to be an impostor. “He would answer all my messages and ask me for various things; I would send him the documents he requested — I even sent him about $2,000. But then, all of a sudden, I never heard from him or his associates again,” she said.

Galofre, who lives in Wisconsin, summed up the current situation: “All of this has affected my son in every conceivable way. As far as I’m concerned, he is still a prisoner, because he can’t do anything.”

Zaragosa said she had always dreamed of having a family of her own after enduring a difficult childhood. The couple now has a 2-month-old baby girl. The day after giving birth, Zaragosa had to go to work because, as she recounts, “we had nothing” for the baby.

“This has been very depressing for me,” she said.

Rojas is now a full-time father, and the couple remains haunted by the fear that he could be detained again. He does not go out alone, and when he does venture out, he never strays from his family.

Galofre suffers for her son, but also for her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren. She has not yet been able to meet the baby and regrets not being close by; she, too, has an ongoing immigration case and fears traveling. “The truth is, it hurts a lot,” she said.

Zaragosa said she learned about Trump from her grandfather, who supports him. But given what they have experienced recently, she now believes the administration’s immigration policies are racist. “We are all human beings. God created us Himself.”

Despite everything she has gone through, she says her feelings toward Trump haven’t changed: “I don’t think anything bad about the president. It wasn’t his fault; it was our fault.”

“I just wanted to see him and fulfill a dream,” she said, “but in trying to make that dream come true, my life was ruined. It destroyed my happiness.”

Rojas, for his part, has a message for the president.

“I would tell Mr. President — and the United States government — to show a little compassion toward the people who truly are doing things right in this country. I arrived with a desire to work; I arrived with a desire to do things the right way,” Rojas said.

An earlier version of this story was first published in Noticias Telemundo.