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Alfredo Orellana, 31, was not just a caregiver for Luke Ferris, a 28-year-old with severe autism. The pair worked out at the gym, got tacos and played video games together. They exchanged elbow bumps.
“It’s like Luke got a bro to hang out with,” said Mr. Ferris’s mother, Lena, from their home in Falls Church, Va.
Then suddenly, after four years, Mr. Orellana, who goes by Alex, was gone, locked up in an immigration detention center nearly 2,000 miles away.
A permanent U.S. resident, or green card holder, Mr. Orellana is facing deportation for trying to swindle a store out of $200 eight years ago when, his wife said, he was struggling with substance abuse.
The detention of Mr. Orellana and other green card holders is the latest sign that the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration is expanding far beyond people who are in the country illegally. Tasked with fulfilling President Trump’s campaign promise to carry out mass deportations, federal agents have been detaining permanent U.S. residents convicted of years-old minor offenses and moving to deport them.
Their families are reeling, as are some of the people they work for, like the Ferrises, who had come to rely on, and even cherish, Mr. Orellana’s care for Luke.
