Ecuadorian native Jessica Supliguicha sat inside her Queens apartment, cradling her month-old baby. She wept as she thought of her husband, Jorge, who had never met the girl she held in her arms; he had been deported to Ecuador three days before their baby was born.
“I don’t know where I get the strength to survive,” Supliguicha said with tears welling in her eyes.
The tot’s father was taken into custody by ICE agents inside 26 Federal Plaza on Sept. 6; meanwhile, his eight-month pregnant wife was outside of the building waiting to reunite with him. Although other families emerged, Jorge never came out. A lawyer called Supliguicha frantically, stating that Jorge had been detained.
It was a moment that not only left her traumatized, with only a month post-partum, she would now be unable to provide for her family. Hearing his mother sob softly, her 9-year-old son Dylan sidled over to her and embraced her.
How Jorge and Jessica met
amNewYork followed Supliguicha as she went about her daily life — preparing food for the newborn and folding laundry while Dylan watched YouTube videos and took his Halloween costume for a test spin.
“It’s Huggy Wuggy!” the boy exclaimed, disappearing into a blue fury costume. Dylan also explained that he was preparing for the Big Halloween dance at school, something he was brimming with excitement over.
Despite both of them attempting to put on a brave face, a sense of sadness and despair clung to the walls and ceilings of the home, a pressure that felt as though it added weight to each movement.
Dylan was born out of a previous marriage, but Jorge was, for all intents and purposes, his father — serving as the patriarch he did not have.
“Jorge came to fill up that emptiness that Dylan needed,” Supliguicha said.
Now, Dylan is left without a father figure and feels that the only friend he has is his cat.
For Jorge and Supliguicha, it was a time-old romance of two friends who just never got the timing right. They had known each other since they were just 15 years old, but it wasn’t until 20 years later that fate struck when they reconnected in 2023.
Both already had families and kids, but something changed this time. Supliguicha saw Jorge with different eyes.
Both still feared the violence that continued to brew in their motherland. While Supliguicha became a citizen in 2023 after 10 years of residency, Jorge had fled stateside after one of his brothers was killed in Ecuador by a gang.
When they met in New York, they also discovered comfort in each other and fell in love.
Jorge was attempting to resolve the situation with his papers since he had a deportation order that had to be amended because he was marrying a US citizen and his wife was pregnant. They fitted him with an ankle monitor without explanation; he wore the monitor when they tied the knot.
After four days of marriage, Jorge received a letter stating that he had to appear in court on Sept. 6. He complied with the order, and was subsequently taken into custody by ICE. Supliguicha has not seen him since.
“I felt that the world was coming to an end,” Supliguicha said. “They change your life overnight.”
She was shocked from the moment she lost Jorge in the hands of ICE, and as the days passed, she entered the final month of her pregnancy and fell into a depressive state.
“I became anemic. She (her baby) was underweight,” Supliguicha said.
Between tears, Supliguicha remembered how she felt the moment they gave her her child, Maite Cristina, after giving birth on Oct. 5. She explains how her pregnancy was an at-risk one, since she had miscarried in the past.
“She was a girl that I was going to lose from the beginning. She overcame many things(during the pregnancy). But, I never thought that at eight months she would also have to overcome the absence of her father,” Supliguicha said.
Still, something was missing: Jorge.
Currently, Jorge is hiding in Ecuador, where he could be persecuted and killed. Supliguicha fears for her husband’s life, with the continued violence on the streets and his brother being murdered by gang members, Jorge is in hiding to survive.
The dread for her husband’s life and whether her family will ever see him again is an unbearable weight Supliguicha must carry while caring for her family alone.
“A former sister in law got involved with that gang of robberies and drugs. His family was harmed.” Supliguicha explains why her husband is in danger in Ecuador. “He couldn’t prove here with facts that he was in danger. Right now, he is in danger. He’s always hiding. He doesn’t go out much.”
Both are waiting for the I-130 form, a petition used by U.S. citizens to bring a non-citizen relative who wants to come to the U.S, to be approved.
In the meantime, Supliguicha plans to return to work in three weeks because she is struggling to make ends meet and cannot afford the rent.
Supliguicha created a GoFundMe account to help support her family. She hopes for the future to reunify the family and wishes her daughter to be able to grow with her father.
“All I can do is move forward and find a way to do things the way they’re supposed to be. Hoping that the paperwork will one day be approved,” she said.
At the same time, she emphasizes that her situation is not unique, but rather one of many.
“I would like them to stop and give them the opportunity for the people who were deported to be reunited, to be together again. Experiencing family separation is awful. My daughter is very young; she can’t understand, but there are older children who can. My husband’s daughters, who were also left without a father,” Supliguichia said.
