When Luis Duque’s partner Oscar was detained by immigration agents in February, it happened fast.
“We were on our way to work, maybe like five minutes after we left his house, we got pulled over near the Bojangles Coliseum on Independence Boulevard,” Duque said. “They just took him, and within 20 minutes he was already at the ICE detention center on Tyvola Road.”
Within hours, Oscar was transferred out of state to a detention center in Georgia. That same day, Duque says he started thinking about money.
“I already knew in my head that lawyer fees are pretty expensive,” Duque said. “I knew that we were going to be looking at a couple of thousand dollars of just lawyer fees.”
So Duque created a GoFundMe. So far, the fundraiser has brought in nearly $14,000 from almost 300 donations, but he says the costs keep growing.
That includes commissary costs for supplies in detention, and phone calls from the detention center. And day-to-day bills are still due.
“Although he was detained, the bills didn’t stop,” Duque said.
Financial blow
The most recent available data shows there have been more than 6,500 immigration arrests in North Carolina since President Trump took office, nearly twice the number made during the previous two years combined.
Immigration attorney Jamilah Espinosa says many families are not prepared for the financial reality when a loved one is detained.
“The next question is, how am I going to pay for this?” Espinosa said. “The cost of living is very expensive, and so people don’t have just this expendable income. Many times, the people being detained are the primary breadwinners.”
Unlike criminal cases, there are no public defenders in immigration court. Families must pay for everything themselves.
“On average, an immigration attorney could charge anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 for representation for someone who is in a detained setting,” Espinosa said. “What many don’t know is that there are very limited bond companies because of the risk of immigration, and a bond in immigration court has to be paid in full.”
Espinosa says bonds can range from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars, pushing many families toward crowdfunding.
For Rebecca Rodrigues, that reality hit immediately after her father, Fernando, was detained in January. He was the family’s main provider.
“Without him, it was kind of just like, well, how do we get him out?” Rodrigues said. “He makes the money, so if we need money to get him out, it was kind of like, what do we do?”
Rodrigues started a GoFundMe and eventually raised more than $21,000 from almost 500 donations. After 38 days in detention, her father was released.
She says her family has already spent around $24,000 on legal fees. The fundraiser made that possible, but his immigration case is ongoing, and more money is needed.
“All I raised was enough for him to be seen in front of a judge to say, ‘Hey, he’s a good man. Can I have him home?'” Rodrigues said. “And I still need to make double that to keep him here where he belongs, which is with me.”
Both Rodrigues and Duque say the support they’ve received has been overwhelming.
“It's been a blessing to get the amount of donations that I have,” Duque said. “Even if it was $5 that they donated, like that's $5 that we didn't have the day before.”
Espinosa says seeing people donate to families can be uplifting.
“It really goes to show that there are really strong values in our community, in our society, that people are willing to give someone else a fighting chance to remain in the United States,” Espinosa said.
But for many families, the harsh reality remains: Whether a loved one gets out of detention or gets to stay in the U.S. often comes down to money.
