A Pennsylvania Family Torn Apart: The Story of Carlos, Angela, and America's Immigration System

For five months, Angela Della Valle has been chasing her husband across the country — from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Florida, Louisiana, and Texas — not because of any crime he committed, but because he is undocumented. Their story puts a human face on what immigration enforcement looks like for the hundreds of thousands of American families caught between love and the law.

Angela, 49, is a middle school teacher from Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Her husband, Carlos, is a 49-year-old Mexican national who has lived in the United States for nearly three decades. They married in 2002 and raised a son, Alessandro, who is now a junior at the University of Pittsburgh. By nearly every measure, they are a typical American family — except that Carlos never obtained legal immigration status, a fact that has now upended their lives entirely.

Since Carlos was detained at an airport in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, on Christmas Day 2024, he has been transferred to more than a dozen detention facilities across three states and two U.S. territories. Angela has stayed at 21 hotels and rental properties trying to stay close to him. She drives an hour each way through the pine forests of central Louisiana just to sit across a wooden table from her husband for one hour at a time.

She doesn't complain about the security checkpoints, the metal detectors, or the pat-downs. "She'd wear a chicken suit if she had to," the original reporting notes. Being near Carlos is all that matters.

How It Started

Carlos grew up in Guerrero, Mexico, a state the U.S. State Department has designated a "Level 4: Do Not Travel" zone due to cartel violence. Unable to find steady work and after being assaulted four times by a local drug cartel for refusing to join, he borrowed money from his grandmother and crossed into the U.S. through Douglas, Arizona, in 1997 with the help of smugglers. He was detained and deported.

Not fully understanding the legal consequences, Carlos crossed again. He eventually settled in Chester County, Pennsylvania, near friends of his grandmother. It was there, in 1998, that he met Angela while she was teaching an English as a second language night class. He was her student. She noticed his kind smile and the way other students gravitated toward him.

They married in 2002. Young and unaware of the full weight of immigration law, they did not consult a lawyer beforehand. When they finally did, the news was sobering — Carlos's illegal entry made his path to legal status extremely complicated. They spent the next two decades trying to find a legal solution while Carlos kept a low profile, avoided any run-ins with the law, worked three minutes from home, and paid his taxes. For more than 20 years, it worked.

The Department of Homeland Security estimated that in 2024, approximately 765,000 noncitizens were married to U.S. citizens while lacking lawful immigration status. Many, like Carlos, have been married for more than 20 years. Under the Biden administration, people like Carlos were generally not prioritized for deportation. That changed when the Trump administration launched its mass deportation campaign, widening the net far beyond violent offenders.

Christmas Day Arrest

The Della Valle family had traveled to St. Thomas for a Christmas vacation — something they had done many times before in places like Puerto Rico, California, and Florida without incident. On December 25, after a hike overlooking the spot where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Caribbean Sea, they headed to the airport for their afternoon flight home to Miami.

At the TSA checkpoint, Angela went through the body scanner and turned around. Carlos was gone.

"Where is my husband?" she asked TSA agents. They did not answer.

For more than six hours, Angela sat on a metal bench near the screening area watching other travelers — many in Christmas pajamas — pass through security. She refused to leave. She refused to use the restroom. She just watched the entrance, hoping Carlos would reappear.

An immigration agent eventually approached her.

"You probably know, but your husband has an old deportation from 1997," he told her. "We have to hold him in custody."

A lawyer Angela had consulted previously told her bluntly that because Carlos had an immigration detainer, fighting for his release locally would likely be a waste of time and money. Angela pushed back.

"That's not acceptable. You're saying not to fight at all?" she asked.

She appreciated the lawyer's honesty. She just couldn't accept the answer.

Following the ICE agent to retrieve Carlos's luggage, Angela spotted her husband through a partially open office door. He was seated at a desk with an immigration official, moments away from being taken to a holding facility.

"Do you want to fight?" she shouted to him, with agents nearby.

"Yes," he yelled back.

Not Guilty — But Still Detained

Two days after Christmas, Angela rushed to the federal courthouse in Charlotte Amalie. The attorney she had arranged had failed to file the necessary paperwork. Things looked grim. Then, Federal Public Defender Melanie Turnbull walked in and asked the judge for a recess. By that evening, Carlos was released on a $20,000 bond with a trial set for August to determine whether he had illegally re-entered the country.

Eight months later, 20 friends and supporters flew from Pennsylvania to St. Thomas for the two-day trial. More than 200 letters from the Chester County community were submitted on Carlos's behalf. They described him as someone who "humbly emulates what it means to be a true human, community member and American" and "the kind of man I hope my sons will be one day."

Even the president of the adhesive company where Carlos worked — a man who had voted for Trump and supported the immigration crackdown — wrote a letter calling Carlos's life "exemplary" and arguing he deserved to be a U.S. citizen.

"I'm sure President Trump had men like Carlos in mind when talking about what the new immigrants will look like. He's not that criminal element that's come here," the company head wrote.

The jury found Carlos not guilty of illegal reentry. The cheers had barely faded when an ICE officer pulled Carlos and Angela aside.

"Carlos, I'm sorry," the ICE officer told them. "You are without status, and you're going into detention."

She gave them one last night together. The next morning, Carlos turned himself in.

Transferred More Than a Dozen Times

What followed was a five-month stretch that Angela describes as "detention ping-pong." Carlos was moved from St. Thomas to Puerto Rico, then bounced across 13 facilities in Florida — including the makeshift tent detention center in the Everglades known as Alligator Alcatraz — before being transferred to Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana, then briefly to a facility in Port Isabel, Texas, and back to Winn again.

At the Everglades facility, detainees reported sleeping on bunk beds under constant fluorescent lights in unsanitary conditions. President Trump had publicly joked that potential escapees should avoid running in a straight line to not be eaten by an alligator. When Angela arrived to visit, a guard assumed her husband was an employee. When she clarified he was a detainee, she was turned away.

"This place is everything they say it is," Carlos told Angela during a phone call from inside.

Throughout it all, Angela was never far behind. She tracked his location using ICE's online detainee locator, called the Mexican consulate, and drove or flew to wherever he was moved. When visiting him in Florida was nearly impossible, the transfer to Winn — despite its own serious problems — at least meant she could see him more regularly.

Winn had been under federal investigation after receiving more than 100 civil rights complaints, including allegations that a guard demanded a detainee "get down on his knees and beg" for his legal documents, that some detainees were confined in a freezer, and that 200 cell-confined detainees were pepper-sprayed.

The Toll on a Family

For Alessandro, the fall semester of his junior year was unlike anything he had experienced. With his father detained and his mother following Carlos across the country, he moved back to campus alone for the first time. His parents had always helped him set up his dorm room — hanging curtains, arranging furniture. This time, he drove back by himself and tried to play music to drown out the emptiness.

"It can't get any harder," the 20-year-old thought. "Then it gets harder."

In November, Alessandro drove down to Louisiana to visit his father. Walking through the metal detectors, getting patted down, hearing the prison bars slam behind him — all of it hit hard.

"It feels like a prison," Alessandro thought.

When Carlos walked in, Alessandro broke down crying. His father had lost significant muscle mass. He was pale and had deep bags under his eyes from sleeplessness. But Alessandro held on tightly.

"It felt like home. Something he hadn't felt in months," the reporting notes.

Back in Pennsylvania, the Downingtown community rallied around the family. Churches held vigils. Neighbors planted "Bring Carlos Home" signs in their yards. A GoFundMe campaign raised more than $90,000.

A Deportation Order and an Appeal

In November, a video court hearing was held to consider whether Carlos faced genuine danger if deported to Guerrero, Mexico. Carlos told the judge he feared he would be targeted because of his American wife and son.

"I have a White American wife and son," Carlos told the judge. "They're going to find me. They're going to kill or extort me."

The family submitted news reports and research documenting violence in Guerrero. In the spring of 2025, 11 bodies had been found in one city following a clash between criminal groups. In another, the mayor was beheaded. The U.S. State Department's highest travel warning — Level 4, "Do Not Travel" — applies to Guerrero.

"There is a risk of violence in the state from terrorist groups, cartels, gangs and criminal organizations," the State Department advisory states.

Government lawyers argued the fear of violence was too general to qualify for protection. The judge sided with the government, reinstating Carlos's deportation order roughly 25 minutes after the hearing began.

"I'm really sorry. I wish you guys luck. Happy Thanksgiving," Angela recalled the judge saying.

Carlos's lawyers filed an appeal, which is still working its way through the courts. In response to questions about the case, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the Trump "administration is not going to ignore the rule of law" and suggested that "illegal aliens" like Carlos should self-deport, noting the government offers a $2,600 payment for doing so and "a chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream." The agency did not address the fact that Carlos was found not guilty of illegal reentry.

Immigration scholar Marielena Hincapié of Cornell University, who helped shape the Biden administration's "Keep Families Together" program — which was suspended in late 2024 following legal challenges by Republican-led states — says the only real fix requires action from Congress.

"These are families who are deeply rooted, who are part of our communities, who are contributing," Hincapié said. "The cruelty, the inhumanity and the complexity of the immigration system are being brought home to local communities in a way that people had never experienced or never understood before."

U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Miami Republican, introduced a bill that would allow immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for more than five years to apply for legal status. The bill has made little progress since its introduction.

Angela remains in a constant state of anxiety. Every time her phone rings, she fears it is news that Carlos has been deported. She is prepared to follow him to Mexico if it comes to that. Their plan: Alessandro finishes school, Angela spends time in Mexico before returning to Downingtown to maintain their home, and they wait for the courts.

In the meantime, Angela has become a quiet source of support for other families in similar situations — helping low-income detainees at Winn fund their phone accounts so they can call home.

A friend of Carlos who was deported from Winn sent her a message after he was reunited with his family in Mexico.

"Eres una sombra atrás de Carlos y la mejor medicina para él es verse," he told Angela. "You are a shadow behind Carlos, and the best medicine for him is to see you."