“Un poco nervioso, y miedo,” (“I’m a little nervous, and scared,”) said Juan David Quichimbo in a text to a reporter.
It was the last text Quichimbo would send before he was detained during a routine check-in with immigration authorities on Tuesday.
Right after that, the authorities took Quichimbo, 44, into a conference room where shackles sat on a table, recalled his attorney Elizabeth Shaw, who was with him.
“He was immediately shocked and started crying,” she said.
Quichimbo’s wife, Mirian Ximena Abarca Tixe, was not present at the appointment, and was notified of his detention by Shaw. She was detained by ICE in August during a check-in too, and was released following a court order in November.
“This is hard…so hard,” she said crying on the phone. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell her, because later, she’s coming home from school,” Abarca Tixe said of 7-year-old Camila.
The family has a pending T visa case, which is for survivors of labor trafficking, through Quichimbo. It’s for immigrants who would face extreme hardship if removed from the country. People waiting for their cases to be adjudicated can legally remain in the country, so it’s unclear why the couple has been detained on two separate instances.
Quichimbo’s detention is one of thousands across Massachusetts since President Donald Trump took office in January. He long claimed his mass deportation efforts would target the “worst of the worst.” But the federal government’s own data has shown over 70% of people detained have had no criminal conviction or record.
In Ecuador, Quichimbo had considered being a whistleblower for the mining company he worked for after a mine collapse killed several men, and no efforts were made to recover the bodies. Company leaders found out, and showed up armed at his barracks. He escaped back home, and fled with his family.
They crossed the southern border in June 2021, and were apprehended and released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The family went to New York and claimed asylum, but it was denied after a shady immigration attorney took their case and money, but didn’t submit paperwork.
In New York, Quichimbo worked for a company that set up and took down massive tents for events, working more than 70 hours a week, for less than minimum wage.
“They didn’t provide him any breaks throughout the day despite the fact he worked from like 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., six days a week,” said Shaw. ”They would use intimidating language to him if he complained — the employer would say, 'I could report you’ or 'You won’t find work elsewhere.’”
The family moved to Massachusetts and met Shaw, who applied for their T visa in fall 2024. The visa can lead to a green card, and has an average wait time of 20 months. Under federal law, the family can remain legally while their application is being processed.
Since August, Quichimbo has been going to weekly check-ins with ICE at the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office in Framingham, traveling three hours round trip from his home in Springfield. Part of the program is wearing an electronic ankle monitor, which he has had on for over a year. His attorney says he has no criminal background, and neither does Abarca Tixe.
At a check-in in November, Quichimbo’s family received notice that they needed to self-deport via a sticky note. A decision by a federal judge last week allowed them to remain.
But this week, Quichimbo’s appointment was changed to the Burlington ISAP office, an indication that he might be detained.
Despite knowing this, Quichimbo went because “he was supposed to,” he told GBH News before the appointment. He was surrounded by around 100 community supporters before going in, and prayed over.
Now, Quichimbo is in a processing facility up the road. He can’t be transferred out of Massachusetts or deported from the U.S. without ICE first notifying the court in his habeas case of good cause to do so.
“I did warn the ICE officers in there that this will be seen as retaliation to the habeas [order] and they did not care,” said Shaw. She filed notice of the arrest with the federal district court of Massachusetts, where Judge George A. O’Toole is considering Quichimbo’s ongoing habeas case.
But the trauma is ongoing for him and his family.
“I think that it’s something psychologically traumatizing for my daughter that she’s going to live through, that she is living through,” Abarca Tixe said. Already, Camila experienced chest pain, nightmares, and panic attacks while her mother was detained, and the pain has continued.
