Jhon Perez Romero carries a driver’s license, Social Security card, and an employment permit, working as a Spark Driver for Walmart in York, Pa.
He also carries the fear of being tortured or killed if he should be deported to his Venezuelan homeland, where he’s been accused as a “traitor” by the government he once served as an intelligence officer.
Perez Romero, who was interviewed and released by U.S. immigration officials when he crossed the border in 2023, was arrested by ICE in Philadelphia on June 30, when he appeared for what he thought would be a routine check-in. He joined a growing number of immigrants taken into custody even while they pursue asylum, a long-established legal process that can grant permission to live in the United States to people who could be harmed at home.
Perez Romero, 39, is being held at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, the 1,876-bed ICE facility in Philipsburg, Pa., his future uncertain, his wife and step daughter in anguish.
“I thought the U.S. represented a place where people who are escaping political or religious persecution can come here and find safety,” said his wife, Sandra Quinones, an American citizen and high school teacher. “Especially if you’re law-abiding and contribute to society. That’s where my heart is broken.”
The Trump administration’s aggressive approach departs from previous administrations, where asylum seekers with no criminal record were mostly allowed to remain free while they pursued their claims. Now applicants have been detained in communities across the United States, including Pennsylvania and South Jersey.
Last week news broke that the administration intends to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 people who are seeking asylum, putting them at risk of arrest and detention. That comes on top of procedural changes that have made it harder for people to prove they should be allowed to stay.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said Perez Romero was released at the border by the Biden administration, not by officials under President Donald Trump.
“He will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings and will receive due process,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “A pending application does NOT confer legal status in the United States.”
The agency said that on Jan. 20 Perez Romero was charged with “harassing communication,” an offense that usually involves phone calls or text messages sent to upset someone.
DHS provided no other information. Dauphin County court records show that Perez Romero pleaded guilty in magisterial district court in March, but do not include details of what occurred. A court worker said Friday she could provide no additional information.
“Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.,” Homeland Security said. “We will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you.”
Generally, the government cannot deport someone while their asylum claim is being decided — claimants must be given what’s called a merits hearing, where they can present evidence, before any final removal action.
The government does have the power to hold asylum seekers in detention for certain reasons, including if it believes the person might flee or is a danger to the public.
Immigration lawyers argue that there’s no gain for the government in detaining asylum seekers, since their names, addresses, and identifying information are already known to authorities, who require regular, in-person check-ins.
“The Trump administration is targeting people to subject them to detention, knowing they won’t be able to fight their way out of the system, so they’ll give up and leave,” said lawyer Lilah Thompson, who leads the immigration unit at the Defender Association of Philadelphia. “They’re wearing people down.”
For immigrants, freedom while pursuing asylum means everything, enabling them to work and earn money to hire an attorney, and to more easily gather evidence and documents for their cases.
Asylum cases can take years to decide — more than 2.3 million people now await asylum hearings or decisions — and appeals can go on for additional months or longer.
Prolonged detention leads some to drop their legal cases and accept voluntary departure. Leaving voluntarily avoids the automatic 10-year ban on returning that can accompany a formal deportation.
“It’s very tough, for people who are facing these choices,” said immigration lawyer Robert Barchiesi II, who represents Perez Romero.
Thompson is helping defend a Chester County newlywed who has so far spent two months in detention after being arrested at a late-June check-in.
Nelson Contreras-Gelves, 35, originally from Venezuela, has followed government directions and broken no rules, Thompson said, noting that he recently married a U.S. citizen.
People seeking asylum must show not only that they could be harmed in their homeland, but also that the danger springs from at least one of five specific causes — their religion, race, nationality, political beliefs, or membership in a particular social group.
People granted asylum can apply for lawful permanent residency and eventually for U.S. citizenship.
Perez Romero’s life has taken him from a position in Venezuela’s notorious national intelligence agency, to a flight across countries in fear of his life, to love and marriage to a U.S. citizen and a caring role as stepfather to her 17-year-old daughter.
From roughly 2011 to 2019, according to his asylum application, Perez Romero was an agent at the Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional, known as SEBIN. It was created in 2010 by then-President Hugo Chávez, officially aimed at protecting the nation but accused by human-rights groups of arresting and torturing political opponents, journalists, and activists.
Perez Romero said he quit the agency after receiving instructions — the specifics were not described in his asylum application — that he refused to obey. His resignation came less than three months after a failed military uprising against authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro triggered a purge of the intelligence services, targeting those suspected of disloyalty.
Perez Romero was told to report to government officials — and that he was accused of treason.
“Which is erroneous,” he wrote in his asylum application, “since I have not committed any crime.”
In March 2020, facing an arrest warrant, Perez Romero fled to Colombia, keenly aware of “what happens to political prisoners in Venezuela, things like imprisonment for life or murder.”
Two years later, after Gustavo Petro was elected as that nation’s president, he said, he began receiving threats from Venezuelan agents that he would be seized and forced home.
Perez Romero headed north. On New Year’s Eve 2023, he reached the U.S. border at Eagle Pass, Texas, where he was interviewed and released by immigration agents.
The next year he met Quinones at La Iglesia de Dios Voz de Alerta Church in York, and they wed in 2025.
She described him in an interview as an outstanding husband and father, working long hours to provide for their family. He’s deeply invested in their church, she said, and before his detention was developing a resource package to help missionaries serving in remote and dangerous areas.
Last month, he tried and failed in federal court to win his freedom from Moshannon.
U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Leeson ordered the government to hold a bond hearing, but Immigration Judge Tamar Wilson ruled that Perez Romero did not show he was not a flight risk or a danger to the community.
He may say he’s innocent of treason, the judge wrote, but “the court cannot simply take his word for it.”
Quinones says the family hasn’t lost hope. Their GoFundMe has raised $8,000 of its $9,000 goal, all of it going for legal fees and related expenses. They await the hearing to present evidence to support Perez Romero’s case for asylum.
Quinones said her husband relies on his Christian faith to stay strong. She’s trying to stay optimistic as well, she said, but so much is uncertain and in flux. Her husband could end up having to accept voluntary departure to a third country, like Colombia.
She’s prepared to retire early and join him, if necessary, and has begun exploring job possibilities there.
“I can’t be apart from my husband,” she said. “I can’t picture my life without him.”
Staff writer Dylan Purcell contributed to this article.