Dad Of 4 Detained At Final Citizenship Interview After Spending Years Going Through Process

A Danish father who came into the United States legally and was in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen has now spent well over a month in immigration detention after he was taken into custody at his citizenship interview in April.

Savannah Eriksen, the wife of 32-year-old Kasper Juul Eriksen, told Mississippi Today that her husband “was detained for a paperwork miscommunication from 2015, and I was sent home with no explanation and no idea where my husband had been transported.”

Savannah Eriksen said her husband had been going through the process of trying to become a citizen “for years.”

The couple met in 2009 when Kasper Eriksen left his hometown of Aalborg, Denmark, to come to the U.S. as a high school exchange student in Starkville, Mississippi, according to the newspaper.

They continued their relationship at a distance after Kasper Eriksen returned to Denmark in 2010. He came back to Mississippi as a legal immigrant in 2013 and the couple married a year later, according to the outlet. During that time, Kasper Eriksen obtained work as a welder, paid taxes and had four children with his wife. The two are now expecting a fifth child.

Kasper Juul Eriksen, a legal immigrant who spent years in the citizenship process, was detained at his final interview.

GoFundMe

On April 15, Kasper Eriksen was taken into ICE custody at his final citizenship interview in Memphis, Tennessee.

ICE records reviewed by HuffPost showed that Kasper Eriksen is being held in LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana, the same privately owned detention center where Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil is in custody.

Speaking from the GEO Group-owned detention center, Kasper Eriksen told the Mississippi Free Press on Tuesday that the law enforcement officer waiting for him in Memphis had “a real sense of remorse because they realized it was an unfortunate circumstance.”

According to the Free Press, Eriksen believes he was ordered removed for failing to submit form I-751, which conditional U.S. residents who marry American citizens must turn in to apply for permanent residency.

He also recalled that his immigration case manager attributed what happened to the strict immigration policies that have become a hallmark of President Donald Trump’s administration.

“He told us that, had it been a couple of months earlier, during the previous administration, the situation would have probably been different,” he said.

Savannah Eriksen wrote on GoFundMe that she and her husband were never notified about the paperwork error at any previous interviews or appointments during her husband’s citizenship process.

Since his detention, Kasper Eriksen has lost about 25 pounds, the Free Press reports. He has met immigrants from across the world who were detained for different reasons.

“It’s all different stuff,” he told the news outlet. “Some people have an expired visa, for some, it’s a minor or larger crime. I would say that some of these people (are victims) of miscommunication.”

According to Savannah Eriksen’s GoFundMe, her husband has a bond hearing on May 27.

The bulk of Kasper Eriksen’s citizenship process was handled by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, with ICE only getting involved when it received an order for his removal, ICE spokesperson Lindsay Williams told the Mississippi Free Press. She added, “the president and the administration have been pretty clear about increased immigration enforcement.”

USCIS spokesperson Matthew J. Tragesser would not comment on the specifics of the case to the outlet, but said, “It is the responsibility of conditional residents of the United States to apply to have those conditions removed before their Green Card expires—allowing them to obtain their permanent residence and ultimately citizenship.”

HuffPost has reached out to both ICE and USCIS.