ALPHARETTA, Ga. — An immigrant from Colombia, just married in February and with no criminal record, is now separated from her husband after agents arrested her outside the couple’s Alpharetta apartment.
Daniela Joly Landin, 24, entered the United States last May, turned herself in to the U.S. Border Patrol and applied for asylum.
Channel 2’s Bryan Mims talked to her husband, Richard Landin. He said she was threatened by violent paramilitary groups because of her work with charities promoting civil rights and helping people get off drugs.
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But in September, an immigration judge in Georgia denied her asylum request. She filed an appeal with the Board of Immigration Appeals, and a decision is pending.
For months, Daniela Landin had been wearing an ankle monitor.
On the morning of May 12, three Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents knocked on her apartment door.
Richard Landin said the agents initially told them they were here to check her ankle monitor, but after she stepped outside, they announced she had an order for deportation because of her asylum denial.
“She looked over to me, and I saw her eyes all teary,” Richard Landin said. “She looked terrified, she looked scared, her eyes were watering.”
Daniela Landin spent nearly two weeks at the Stewart Detention Center near Columbus but was moved to the El Paso Service Processing Center in Texas on May 25.
“For someone that has a flawless record, it kind of just doesn’t make sense,” he said.
He said she’s among 80 women in a pod at the facility, and they talk by phone every day.
“There are times she sounds anxious and defeated,” he said. “She tries to have a brave face.”
The two met online and soon went out to dinner, where they talked for hours and hit it off.
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“We just kind of talked about our lives, our hopes and dreams,” he said.
On Feb. 8, they were married in Alpharetta.
Richard Landin is now living with his mother in Marietta, too upset to return to his apartment.
“It’s painful being there without her,” he said. “We moved into that apartment together.”
Jameel Manji, Daniela Landin’s immigration attorney, said ICE detentions have spiked “across the board” since President Donald Trump took office.
“Generally speaking, she’s not high on the priority list of individuals they need to worry about,” he said.
But he said the Trump administration has zeroed in on undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for less than two years, whether they have committed crimes or not.
“Two years is kind of an arbitrary marker that this administration is using, but basically when someone’s been in here for less than two years, they consider them prime candidates for expedited removals,” he said.
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In previous administrations, he said, someone appealing an asylum ruling would not be detained while a decision was still pending.
“The way generally individuals will get into detention if they have a pending case is if they break the law,” Manji said.
As for why Daniela Landin was denied asylum, he said applicants have a high threshold to meet.
“Asylum is very difficult to win, in particular in Georgia,” he said.
The couple has hired other attorneys who are trying to get her released from detention on bond.
“Honestly, I just miss my wife,” he said. “That’s really just it, I miss my wife. I miss being able to hug her, I miss being able to see her face to face.”
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