ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – An Apopka woman spoke out on Friday after her father, a local business owner who illegally entered the U.S. decades ago, was deported back to Guatemala.
According to WKMG in Orlando, Esvin Juarez, a father of four, was detained when he showed up to his immigration check-in and was later deported after he “disappeared for eight days,” a news release states. His wife, Rosmeri Miranda, was detained on Thursday and now faces deportation herself, the release continued.
Beverly Juarez, 21, one of the couple’s four children, attended a news briefing Friday morning to talk about what happened to her parents.
“As everyone knows, they did illegally enter the country over 20 years ago, and due to fear, they missed a court hearing decades ago and, as a result, they were ordered removed,” she said. “Over the years, my family overcame that fear and my dad sought to do things the right and the lawful way, and in 2010 he began his case with ICE — they both began their case with ICE — and slowly and surely they were able to jump through obstacles and jump through all types of barriers; language barriers, racial barriers."
Beverly Juarez further described her parents’ yearslong attempts to secure legal status in the U.S., most recently by pursuing the U visas granted to undocumented immigrants who are the victims of certain crimes or who help law enforcement with criminal investigations.
“My father was a victim of a crime, assault, in 2021 that, unfortunately, my brothers were able to witness and they were able to see my father get thrown to the ground by six masked gunmen who snuck into my father’s property where we kept the machinery and equipment for work,” she said, adding the home invasion left her family members afraid to leave their home.
Friday’s briefing took place near the ICE Field Office along Delegates Drive in Orlando, where Beverly Juarez said she arrived last year with her father for a check-in during which they were told another year’s time would be granted for the U visa paperwork to be processed.
“Over the span of this year, they were able to acquire a bona fide determination on their U visa application and under that determination they get something called deferred action, which means that they can defer their deportation, but it is under the officer’s discretion, and so what that means is that the officer can use their discretion in a favorable way and grant them extra time to wait for that visa to come in or they can just say, ‘We’re going to deport you because we don’t think that you should stay because you don’t have these qualifications.’ And on that note, my father owned a business, he’s a father of four, I go to college, my father pays taxes,” she said.
Beverly Juarez was joined by State Rep. Anna Eskamani, Rep. Rita Harris, and Rep. Johanna Lopez, among other local officials.
Citing the U visa process, Lopez called Rosmeri Miranda a brave woman who was illegally detained.
“A U visa is not suggestion. It is a legal protection granted to immigrant survivors of violent crimes who assist law enforcement in the pursuit of justice. That is exactly what Mrs. Juarez did. She followed the rules. She cooperated with authorities and now she’s been punished for it,” Lopez said.
The family is receiving support from the Immigrants Are Welcome Here Coalition and Hope CommUnity Center, the release states.
Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet, executive director of Hope CommUnity Center, said Friday’s event was about communicating that the government still has a chance to do the right thing.
“Parole programs were offered as a promise of safety, but now, even those who sought refuge under these programs face the threat of deportation and removal,” he said. “This is not only tearing apart families, it’s destabilizing our community, disrupting our workforce, and undermining trust in our institutions.
“And at the county level, we continue to see due-process violations in the jail system, where people are often funneled into ICE custody without full transparency or protections. When local systems fail to safeguard basic rights, the consequences are devastating and we’re seeing (that) here today with the Juarez family. We’re not here to assign blame or to provoke retaliation, we are here because we believe that the government has the opportunity to get this right. ICE has discretion and we’re asking that they exercise it now with compassion and respect of due process. This is not about politics, this is about people.”
Watch the news conference again in the video player below or by clicking here.