Jarrod Zinn
SANTA MARIA, Calif. (KEYT) – A Santa Maria man has been reunited with his five-year-old daughter who was held in an ICE detention facility for 20 hours, along with his wife who remains in holding for the time being.
Milenko Faria moved to Santa Maria in 2017 after fleeing Venezuela, and his asylum case is pending after nearly a decade.
He and his wife Dr. Rubilez Bolivar, another Venezuela native, had their five-year-old daughter in Santa Maria, a U.S. citizen who calls the Central Coast “home.”
Dr. Rubilez Bolivar has been lawfully present in the U.S. under her own work visas and a pending asylum case of her own, serving residency in an underserved community in southern Texas.
Dr. Bolivar was traveling with their daughter at a Texas airport and were about to board a flight back to Santa Maria.
They were going to be present in support for Milenko’s upcoming asylum hearing in Tustin.
At the airport in Texas in the wee hours of Saturday morning, an immigration official told Dr. Bolivar that her documents, having originated from Venezuela, were invalid.
She and her five-year-old were detained.
A relative had to travel from Florida to Texas to take custody of the child and transport her back to Santa Maria so she could be reunited with her father.
Both Dr. Bolivar and Milenko Faria have received outpourings of support from their employers as well as their communities.
Milenko told your News Channel that while he doesn’t want to say too much too soon, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, and his wife says she is not being mistreated in any way.
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