A couple who voted for President Donald Trump in the 2024 election say they feel “betrayed” after their green card-holding son was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Martín Verdi and Débora Rey, naturalized U.S. citizens originally from Argentina, backed Trump’s hardline immigration agenda—but never imagined their family would be swept up in it.
“We feel betrayed, deceived,” Verdi told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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“[Trump] didn’t say he was going to do this, that he was going to go after people who have been here for a long time,” Rey added. “He said he was going to go after all the criminals who came illegally.
The couple, who live in North Carolina, said they would have made a different choice at the ballot box had they known the extent of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
In February, Department of Homeland Security officials at Los Angeles International Airport confiscated their son Agustin Gentile’s green card and Argentine passport after he returned from a trip abroad, and told him to report to a Customs and Border Protection office in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he lives.
When the 31-year-old father of two children—both U.S. citizens—did so in April, he was first held in a local county jail before being transferred to ICE’s Stewart Detention Center near Lumpkin, Georgia—the country’s second-largest immigration jail. Authorities reportedly targeted him because of a misdemeanor case that had been officially closed.
In 2020, Gentile was convicted in California of misdemeanor infliction of injury and sentenced to three years’ probation—a case that was closed in 2023, according to the Journal Constitution.
When reached for comment, a DHS official told the Daily Beast, “Lawful status in the U.S. is a privilege, not a right—and it comes with conditions. Convictions and charges for crimes such as domestic violence, assault/battery can lead to removal. Break the law, and there are consequences.”
The Daily Beast was unable to confirm the details of Gentile’s misdemeanor conviction, including the identity of the victim.
Court records show that in Los Angeles in July 2019, Gentile’s ex-wife was granted a restraining order, after accusing him of threatening her with a gun, grabbing her by the neck, and slapping her in the face. Agustin Gentile filed for divorce in August 2019, according to court records.
On the campaign trail last year, Trump vowed to crack down on undocumented immigration, promising to carry out “the largest deportation effort in U.S. history.” But since taking office, his administration has also gone after legal residents—green card holders like Gentile.
On May 1, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) warned on X, “Having a visa or green card is a privilege that can be taken away. Our rigorous security vetting does not end once you’ve been granted access to the U.S. If you come to our country and break the law, there will be consequences, and you will lose your privileges.”
Rey said Trump had been “very clear” that his immigration policies wouldn’t reach people like her son.
“It was a massive deception, what [Trump] did,” she said. “He’s a liar.”
Gentile is one of a slew of green card holders who have been detained over old criminal convictions, including low-level offenses, or unclear reasons, while reentering the country.
Many have lived in the U.S. for decades; green cards are typically renewed every ten years.
“He grew up here. Lived here forever,” Rey said of Gentile. The family moved from Argentina to the U.S. in the 1990s, when Gentile was still a toddler. Verdi added that his son attended school from pre-K through college in Florida.
The couple spoke to the newspaper from El Refugio, a hospitality house in Lumpkin meant for families who are visiting loved ones held at the nearby detention center. They said Gentile wasn’t guaranteed a hearing in immigration court until at least May 12—and even then, he could still be deported to Argentina. They said Gentile’s children, ages six and eight, have been told for now that their father is away on a trip.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the family for comment.
