ICE Detains Man in US for Decades at Green Card Interview...

By Joshua Rhett Miller

Chief Investigative Reporter

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Federal immigration officials detained a South Korean national who has lived in the United States for decades during a recent green card interview, his wife said Wednesday.

Xelena Diaz, 29, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials took her husband, Taeha Hwang, 39, into custody during a marriage-based green card interview at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Los Angeles on October 29.

Diaz said the couple, who married in February after meeting through a mutual friend years earlier, had been expecting to meet with federal immigration officials as they planned to hold a formal wedding ceremony in South Korea next year.

“In order for us to be able to travel to Korea for our wedding, we needed to get everything situated,” Diaz told Newsweek during an interview. “Right now, he couldn’t travel because he had a conditional visa from his previous marriage.”

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Hwang’s failure to update his address following a 2021 divorce led to a May 2024 removal order connected to his prior conditional green card. He later claimed he wasn’t notified, but federal officials insisted he had an obligation to report any change of address, Diaz said.

“Genuinely, he didn’t receive it, or he would’ve shown up for this court hearing,” she said. “Because he didn’t show up for this court hearing in May 2024, he was issued a deportation order.”

Diaz, of Los Angeles, said she and Hwang were “blindsided” by the development. He remains in custody Wednesday at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California, staff at the facility confirmed to Newsweek.

“When we showed up for our green card appointment, they detained him because there was a warrant issued last year for his removal,” Diaz said. “I mean, they had approved us for the green card interview, we paid like almost $5,000 in fees for this and we really didn’t know. I thought maybe they would’ve issued us something to correct it.”

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Instead, Hwang, who previously worked as a waiter in Los Angeles, has been detained for 36 days and counting. A judge blocked his deportation order late last month and scheduled a new hearing for March 27, Diaz said.

Diaz hopes Hwang will soon be granted bond following a federal court decision in late November granting more detained immigrants with no criminal history the ability to request bond hearings after the Trump administration ended the policy in July.

“We’re just trying to get him out,” Diaz said.

Newsweek's messages seeking comment from ICE officials were not immediately returned Wednesday.

Diaz, who previously worked as a model and esthetician in Florida, said she met Hwang through a mutual friend in 2022. They started dating two years later and got married during a civil ceremony in Los Angeles on February 6, she said.

Hwang, a native of South Korea, initially arrived in the United States as a 3-month-old in 1986 before traveling back to the East Asian nation in 1988. He returned to the U.S. in 2000, then went back to Korea to serve in the military from 2007 to 2010. He subsequently moved to the United States, where he had legal residence through a series of family and student visas, as well as a conditional green card, Diaz said.

“He just missed this one step,” she said. “I think he thought he was fine. People think when they get married, you have the green card and you’re fine — I mean, essentially you are, but there’s things you have to do. He missed that part.”

Diaz has launched an online fundraising campaign for Hwang, whom she characterized as “generous, hilarious, and intelligent.” More than $6,300 in donations had been received as of late Wednesday.

“When I first met him in Los Angeles, I was immediately drawn to his contagious laugh, his compassionate kindness, and the graceful way he carried himself,” Diaz wrote. “Taeha has had to be strong from a very young age. When he was a child, his sister was diagnosed with cancer, and his mother’s relatives rotated caring for him during that difficult time. Despite these early challenges, he grew into a hardworking and compassionate man. For over 20 years, he has built his life in Los Angeles, working tirelessly as a waiter to support himself and contributing to his community.”

Diaz said her husband does not have a criminal record but remains held in an overcrowded facility as he awaits his fate. She last spoke to him late Tuesday, she said.

“The conditions are not great,” she told Newsweek. “He told me the A/C was broken for like a week and they were melting; he said the water is, like, white.”

Diaz also recalled the harrowing moment from the October 29 meeting with federal immigration officials when she realized the couple’s attempt to secure Hwang’s marriage-based green card would not go as planned.

“I feel like I didn’t think anything was really wrong until literally ICE agents came up to me and told me they detained him,” she said. “They had to keep repeating to me because I wasn’t hearing — I was in shock. I couldn’t understand, I was crying.”

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