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A Venezuelan man made a plea for asylum to U.S. officials on Thursday, during an interview that he had hoped would include his wife, a prominent doctor from South Texas. However, she was detained at the airport alongside their 5-year-old daughter.
Milenko Faria attended the interview at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office near Los Angeles. Meanwhile, his wife, Dr. Rubeliz Bolivar, remained in immigration detention in Texas, marking her sixth day in custody and preventing her from being present at the much-anticipated appointment, which the couple had awaited for over a decade.
Dr. Bolivar, known for her work in a medically underserved region, was apprehended by Border Patrol agents at McAllen International Airport on Saturday. At the time, she was with their daughter, who was born in the United States, and they were about to board a flight to join Faria for the asylum interview.
Bolivar’s detention marks the second arrest of a Venezuelan doctor in the area within a week. Just days earlier, on April 6, Dr. Ezequiel Veliz was taken into custody by Border Patrol at a checkpoint in South Texas. After spending around ten days in detention, Veliz’s attorney, Victor Badell, successfully arranged a bond hearing, leading to his release on Thursday after posting an $8,000 bond.
These arrests are linked to President Donald Trump’s strict immigration policies. The Department of Homeland Security has shifted its focus to less conspicuous arrests following a January enforcement sweep in Minnesota that resulted in the deaths of two U.S. citizens.
Bolívar worked in the emergency room of a hospital in McAllen, city of about 150,000 in the Rio Grande Valley near the Mexican border, starting in June 2025, when she was accepted into her medical residency program.
The husband said that she arrived at the U.S. with a tourist visa in 2016, after graduating from medical school in her native Venezuela.
Before her authorized period of stay expired, she was included in the asylum application filed by her husband, he said. Both are also seeking a green card through an application for skilled workers, processed by Faria’s employer, a California company where he has worked as an information systems technician since 2019.
The couple was beneficiary of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuela that shielded more than 600,000 Venezuelans from deportation. Trump terminated the protections for Venezuela, Haiti, Syria, Afghanistan, Nicaragua and other countries, a decision that has been challenged in federal court.
The Department of Homeland Security said that Bolivar was arrested because she was in the country illegally.
“She has overstayed her visa since 2017, nearly a decade, and had no legal status,” said DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis.
Jodi Goodwin, an immigration attorney in South Texas, noted that around September or October 2025, she observed a change in policy regarding travel of individuals with pending applications before USCIS.
”It just became a very apparent trend where anyone that had some kind of application pending with USCIS, whether it was an adjustment of status or asylum, anything like that, they were going to be arrested,” said Goodwin.
Faria and Bolivar lived together in Santa Maria, California, until she moved to Texas in the summer of 2025 for her medical residency. He said he traveled every two months to visit his wife and daughter. The day of her arrest was the first time Bolívar had traveled since moving to Texas.
Bolivar was arrested by Customs and Border Protection officers before passing through transportation security screening, where she was asked to show her identification. She showed her driver’s license — bearing the “Real ID” endorsement required to domestic flights — and a work authorization valid until 2030.
She told them that she was adjusting status to a green card and was traveling to California for an asylum interview but the officer detained her after asking for her nationality and demanding that she provide proof of legal permanent residency, said Faria. He received text messages from his wife at the time she was being arrested.
Their 5-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen, was also arrested and handed over to her grandfather 19 hours later. The girl is currently in California with her father.
The doctor was transferred to ICE custody on Sunday and is being held at El Valle Detention Facility in Texas.
She has asked several times why she was detained but has not received any response yet, Faria said.
Ezequiel Veliz, the other Venezuelan physician, came to the United States to become a doctor in 2018 under a tourist visa. His friend, Hector Ruiz, described him as a kind-hearted doctor who loves his pet cats and is devoted to his work.
Veliz adjusted his immigration status as a student and later as a doctor at a South Texas hospital in the Rio Grande Valley working under TPS. The pause in the protection status had immediate consequences on his two-year residency.
“He was one year and four months into that. He couldn’t continue working legally. He had to stop,” said Badell, his attorney.
He was waiting for a visa requested by the hospital when he was detained at a Border Patrol checkpoint traveling to Houston with his husband on April 6.
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