On Tuesday afternoon, Allan Marrero stood holding hands with his husband, Matthew, in the sanctuary of Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village, wiping away tears.
After five long months in immigration detention, he was finally free — but a larger battle continues.
“It’s not over yet for the thousands of people that are still detained,” Allan told Documented. “My brothers and sisters that are still detained. That’s the message — that I want to be able to lift my voice up and continue with the fight for others that are still wrongfully detained in the system.”
Dozens of church members stood at the couple’s back as politicians, city officials, and religious leaders spoke on the significance of Allan’s freedom and detention at 26 Federal Plaza, which was first reported by Documented in December. The church was awash in flowers and people wearing outfits featuring the pair’s signature color combination, blue and purple, which had come to symbolize their love story and fight for freedom.
The couple’s marriage was torn apart by ICE after the two attended a green card interview at the federal building following their legal marriage in the city. Allan Marrero had lived in the U.S. for 12 years as an asylum-seeker who feared persecution as a member of the LGBTQ+ community in his home country. It was one of the first high-profile cases in New York City of ICE arresting married New Yorkers looking to obtain a green card to stay with their loved ones.
Allan, who is from the Cayman Islands, had fought his case while ICE moved him between multiple immigration detention centers across the U.S. — often without informing his husband or lawyers. Over five months, he was transferred to Delaney Hall in New Jersey, Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, and facilities in Mississippi, Arizona, Louisiana, and Texas. His rollercoaster of a fight in the country’s immigration courts has become a symbol for what many call the “trap” of the immigration system in New York, where immigrants trying to follow the rules face deportation.
During the course of his detention, Allan Marrero said the place could often be violent, and at first he had trouble as an English speaker. Beyond the constant support from his husband and church, he also found a community in detention that supported him as he navigated turbulent emotions, missed medications, and the ups and downs of his immigration case.
“If they saw me sleeping for a day or two, [my friend] would ‘Come, come Allan boy, wake up, wake up. You gotta eat. You haven’t eaten in two days,’” he said.
He also received writing and cards from New Yorkers. One in particular, from a young man from Harlem’s Riverside Church, kept him afloat.
“It was just a little card. It had a sticker inside,” Allan Marrero told Documented. “And it said, ‘Be a warrior, not a worrier.’ And I just looked at that, if not daily, every other day. I would just take it out. ‘Be a warrior, not a worrier.’ And it just kept me going.”
For those who are still trapped in the confines of federal detention, he urged people to “sit close” to their family.
“Don’t just sit in there and dwell on everything and take everything on and bottle everything up,” he said, stressing that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. “But actually reach out to your support group and speak with people and your loved ones and let them know how you’re actually feeling.”
Allan Marrero’s light came in the form of a federal lawsuit that accused U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of not following congressional law by keeping him detained instead of giving him the bond he had earned in court in January.
“I think when they saw our lawsuit, they realized that they would lose in federal court and let him out,” his lawyer, Alex Rizio, told Documented.
Allan Marrero is not yet free from his fight in immigration court, however. He is still fighting for the right to stay in the United States after his most recent attempt to win residency was cut short by a temporary immigration judge from Indiana.
At the center of his resilience over the past months, he said, was the undying support and love of his husband, who didn’t stop fighting for Allan to return to him and their two dogs, Sasha and Roscoe
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“He’s my forever magical unicorn,” he told Documented. “So just to be able to see my magic unicorn in the flesh, be able to touch him, kiss him, hold him, lay next to him with our pups has just been amazing. And it’s something that I’ve never taken for granted before, but I wanna make sure that I never do now.”
At the press conference, Matthew Marrero was dressed in blue while Allan dressed in purple: a swap of their usual colors, and the product of a conversation that came out of a typical spousal gripe.
“When he got home, he was like, ‘Baby, the closet is a mess,’ and he totally reorganized the closet,” Matthew laughed. While rearranging, Allan Marrero realized he did not want to wear a button-down — and they swapped.
“The love never went away,” Matthew said. “I think we are definitely reinvigorated to appreciate every moment. Because the time apart was awful, but we are looking forward to our lives.”
