On the afternoon of Aug. 18, DaNae Snow got what she described as the call of her nightmares.
Her husband, Donggin Shin, who goes by John, had been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to a Facebook post from Snow (whose account lists her name as DaNae Shin), her husband called to say that ICE was taking him to a detainment center and that he loved her and their kids. She said he got only 30 seconds to talk.
“I’m shaking as I type this, I’ve been in shock, I’ve [been] shattered, I’m so scared, I’m enraged, and I’m reaching out to our community for help,” she wrote. “John is not a criminal, he is an amazing husband, father and person, and I will do whatever it takes to bring him back home.”
Shin has played violin for the Utah Symphony and Ballet West, Snow, a North Salt Lake resident, said in a GoFundMe she set up to pay for his legal costs. By Thursday afternoon, the fundraiser had received nearly $69,000.
According to ICE’s detainee locator, Shin is currently being held at an ICE contract detention facility in Aurora, Colorado, as he awaits a Sept. 2 hearing before an immigration judge.
“ICE arrested Donggin Shin, a criminal illegal alien from South Korea, on Aug. 18, 2025,” a spokesperson for the agency said. “His criminal history includes a DUI conviction. Shin entered the U.S. on a tourist visa on September 3, 1998. This visa required him to depart the U.S. by March 3, 1999. Over 25 years later, he was still illegally in the U.S. President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [of Homeland Security Kristi] Noem are committed to restoring integrity to the visa program and ensuring it is not abused to allow aliens a permanent one-way ticket to remain in the U.S. Our message is clear: criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the United States.”
Shin was 10 years old when he arrived in the U.S.
In a FOX 13 story, friend Gabriel Gordon said Shin later received protections under President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields some people who came to the country as children with their parents from deportation.
In an ABC 4 story, however, Shin’s lawyer, Adam Crayk, said a DUI conviction usually wipes out those protections.
Shin later graduated from the University of Utah with a master’s degree in violin performance. He would go on to teach violin at The McGillis School and Rowland Hall. He also played for local studios and served as the president of the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City. His LinkedIn profile says he has been working for AT&T as a radio field frequency engineer since 2021.
In 2019, he was arrested for and convicted of impaired driving on Interstate 80 in Tooele County, court records show. He was handed a 90-day suspended prison sentence, paid a fine and went on probation for a year.
Daily average ICE arrests in Utah under the second Trump administration have ballooned, according to The New York Times. From the point Trump took office to June 10, according to The Times, average arrests were up 215% compared with the average daily rate in all of 2024.
Snow informed GoFundMe givers on Monday that the family’s lawyers were confident they could get Shin out of ICE custody on bond. A group of musicians will play a benefit concert for Shin at the First Methodist Church at 203 S. 200 East on Monday at 7 p.m.