They moved to Salt Lake County less than nine months ago, but their neighbors already love them.
The family of four has helped watch and clean homes next door and pet sit for traveling families. They only speak a little English, but using their phones to translate services, the devout members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints quickly became ingrained in their local faith community. They’re often the first to sign up for volunteer opportunities.
“I feel like the reason everyone so quickly has absorbed them and loves them is because they want to join,” said family friend Sue Astle. “... And for me, that kind of feels like the spirit of America, like immigrant forefathers and people who came — they all had to do that work.”
Originally from Venezuela, the mother, father, son and daughter-in-law all came to the U.S. last year on humanitarian parole, they said. When they arrived last August in Utah — where they “always wanted to be,” where they feel people “live the gospel,” the son said in Spanish — they said they had purchased two-year work permits.
But on April 11, the family members said, they were suddenly told they needed to leave the country within seven days.
“The decision that we as a family made from the beginning is that we were going to do everything legal,” the son told The Salt Lake Tribune. “... And now that we did everything right, they don’t want us here.”
The Tribune is not naming the family members because they fear being detained or deported before their pending efforts to stay in the country legally are resolved. The Tribune verified their identities with their Utah attorney, Jim McConkie, who cofounded the Refugee Justice League, a nonprofit that offers pro-bono legal help to refugees. McConkie and the family also shared immigration documents with The Tribune.
‘Please depart the United States immediately’
The April notification came in the form of an email from the Department of Homeland Security, which told each member of the family that the agency was “exercising its discretion to terminate your parole.”
“Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you,” the notice read, giving them one week to leave. “Please depart the United States immediately.”
Dismayed but determined not to break the law, the family again began to pack up their lives. They didn’t feel Venezuela was a safe option, so they turned to their local faith community for help, trying to choose a Central American country where they could legally settle.
The LDS Church in January reaffirmed in a news release the long-standing immigration principles that “guide the church’s approach.” Those principles emphasize obedience to the law but also urge love “for all of God’s children,” and say church members should help those in need, regardless of immigration status.
As the family members tried to decide where to go, Astle helped connect them with McConkie, who said he considered the government notices a “scare tactic” and agreed to represent them.
A few days later, McConkie hosted an April 18 news conference with the mayor of Millcreek, a community where a handful of residents had received such notices.
“We consider that to be an absolutely illegal order,” McConkie said of his clients at the time. “They’re lawfully here, unless the United States can prove otherwise.”
Nearly two weeks later, on April 30, the mother and daughter-in-law received notices that their work permits would expire in 15 days, on May 13.
“We pay our taxes, we don’t have any legal problems — no penalties, no fees, no nothing,” the son said. “But just because we are Venezuelans, we have the risk of being treated as criminals.”
Their journey to the U.S., mostly on foot
The family first left Venezuela in 2019, when the mother and father were in their 50s, their eldest son and his wife were in their 20s, and their youngest son was 12.
They fled after the father said he made a formal complaint about election concerns, which he said put a target on his and his family’s back.
Their first stop was neighboring Colombia, where they lived for a few years. Over that time, the father and youngest son were each robbed twice, the mother recalled, and their proximity to Venezuela made them feel increasingly unsafe.
In September 2023, they decided to head to Mexico City, a fear-filled journey that took months, trekking through countries including Guatemala, Honduras, and parts of Mexico mostly on foot, the eldest son said.
“Being in the jungle was terrifying,” the mother said.
Once in Mexico City, they were able to find work as barbers and in shopkeeping and sewing as they began the lengthy process to apply for humanitarian parole and hoped to be admitted to the U.S.
It took about nine months, but on Aug. 22, the family was permitted entry into the U.S. for a temporary period, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services determined, based on urgent humanitarian reasons, McConkie said.
But they didn’t all resettle in Utah together. At the border, officials flagged the youngest son’s tattoos, separating the then-19-year-old from the rest of his family, the family said.
A missing son
The family members said they haven’t seen the youngest son since the day they were separated from him.
“Sometimes I don’t sleep for about 50 hours in a row,” the mother said, her voice breaking. “Sometimes I must take pills to go to sleep because of how I‘ve been feeling.”
The mother said their son’s tattoos weren’t gang-affiliated. She said they included a tattoo of Medusa and Zeus on his right arm; a tattoo of the word “familia” on his chest; a tattoo of his birth date on his fingers; a tattoo of Jesus on his calf; a tattoo of two wings on his neck; and another tattoo of the numbers “777,” which she said stands for good luck, on his left arm.
Border officials said they would be reunited with the young man once an investigation into him was complete, the family said. The officials told them it should take two or three days.
The family said they didn’t hear from their youngest son for a week.
On a phone call, he told them he had been taken to a San Diego detention center, where he was expected to have hearings on his immigration status, the mother said. Over the course of seven months, the family said, they received calls from the youngest son nearly every day — even after he was eventually transferred to a facility near Eldorado, Texas.
He would tell them about his hearings, they said, but the family never clearly understood what was happening, the mother said. McConkie said he believes, based on their accounts and the number of court hearings he had, that the Department of Homeland Security was trying to get her youngest son to agree to deportation, so that they “would be justified in sending him out of the country.”
The last time they heard from him, the family members said, was in a phone call on March 14. Then he disappeared, the mother said.
“My last call was like all the rest,” the mother said, “and then I never heard from him again.”
Around the same time, the deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García made national headlines. García is an El Salvador native who lived in the U.S. for 14 years before federal authorities mistakenly deported him to a controversial and crowded Salvadoran prison called the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), which has been accused of human rights violations, The Associated Press has reported.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) People march to the consulate of El Salvador to protest the Trump administration's refusal to bring Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia back, in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
In a national news report about the prison, the mother saw footage that she believes showed the back of her son’s head and shoulders. Later, another news report listed her son’s name among those who had been deported to El Salvador from the U.S., the mother added.
This month, a Venezuelan support group sent her and the family more footage from CECOT.
“I saw my son standing behind bars facing out and recognized him,” the mother said. “There is not a question in my mind that he is there.”
The Department of Homeland Security has never provided the family with any information on her son’s status, she said.
What’s next?
For now, the family is staying put, McConkie said.
They plan to renew their employment authorization, even though they were initially told their work permits — revoked May 13 — would be in effect for two years.
Humanitarian parolees are allowed to apply for work permits either when they first enter the country or 150 days after they apply for permanent asylum, which they have up to a year to do after arrival. McConkie said that’s because it can be difficult for those seeking asylum to gather documents from their home countries. The family applied for asylum in January, and they have an asylum hearing scheduled for January 2028, he added.
“There’s also the legal question of, since the United States promised them they could work when they came into the country for two years, and they’re just summarily saying you can’t, is that legal?” McConkie said.
“And the answer is no,” he asserted, “you can’t make promises and break them.”
McConkie is also working to definitively locate the family’s youngest son with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is trying to find others deported to El Salvador under similar circumstances.
On May 16, the Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump’s administration could not use a centuries-old law called the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify the rapid removal of Venezuelan immigrants who had been accused of being gang members, according to The Associated Press.
But on Monday, the high court permitted the administration to withdraw Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from some 350,000 Venezuelans, which could expose many to deportation, The Associated Press reported.
McConkie said the ruling was “extremely concerning,” but that TPS is an “entirely different protection” from humanitarian parole, which is what the Utah family was granted. TPS is granted to people already in the U.S. from countries that were deemed unsafe to return to by the Secretary of Homeland Security, such as Ukraine.
Separately, humanitarian parole is granted at the discretion of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to those seeking entry into the U.S. from outside the country on the basis of urgent humanitarian reasons.
The mother said she remains hopeful that her younger son may one day be located and safely brought to the U.S. “But at the same time, they are telling us to leave the country, so we are scared,” she said.
Together, the family provided McConkie with a list of their concerns, which he shared with The Tribune.
“What happens if I am deported?” the list reads. “What would it be like if I were in a detention center? Could I survive? If I am deported to my home country, will I be imprisoned and tortured?”
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