“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
For many immigrants seeking refuge, these words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty encapsulate the American dream — the promise that every person, regardless of background, has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life.
But for Luis Morillo, brother of local restaurateur Beixy Shepard, that dream became a waking nightmare. Despite going through all the proper legal channels to seek a new chance at life in America, Morillo must now self-deport or face internment and legal strife for the loved ones who have helped him in his journey.
After fleeing political upheaval in Venezuela, living five years in Colombia and finally receiving U.S. government approval to enter the United States under a humanitarian parole program, Morillo and his wife thought their journey toward stability and safety had reached a turning point.
But like countless other immigrants navigating shifting federal policies, Morillo and his family found that legal status can evaporate in an administrative instant. They found themselves in legal purgatory, forced to traverse a system rife with false promises, dead ends, financial burdens and danger.
Their ordeal, echoed by tens of thousands across the country, highlights the human cost of an immigration system crippled by political infighting and abrupt reversals.
Morillo’s journey to America began during the Biden administration’s expansion of humanitarian programs. Morillo started the process around 2022 with the help of his brother-in-law Nick Shepard. A Pocatello native and U.S. citizen, Nick agreed to act as Morillo’s sponsor, taking on legal obligations and helping him through the U.S. immigration process.
Morillo had been residing in Colombia at the time for nearly five years, seeking respite from Venezuela’s refugee crisis and economic upheaval. It was around 2024 when he received a letter from the U.S. government granting travel authorization to come to America.
Wasting no time, Morillo and his wife sold their belongings and purchased plane tickets with the money they had managed to save. They landed in Houston and, after a series of interviews, biometric checks and documentation verification, were granted entry under a two-year humanitarian parole. Morillo received work authorization but was required to pay an annual $470 fee.
As soon as he touched down in Pocatello shortly after July 2024, Morillo immediately applied for work authorization. Three weeks later, Morillo would be working as a shift lead at the local Walgreens.
“It was really good,” Morillo said. “They were really nice to me and they helped me a lot.”
It seemed like a fresh start for Morillo, who continued to work and provide for his wife over the next few months. It wasn’t until the advent of the most recent Trump administration and its dissolving of many immigrant programs that Morillo’s beautiful dream transformed into a bleak nightmare.
After months of legal posturing and reviews of the federal government’s power to end targeted programs, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration could terminate the humanitarian parole initiatives, rescinding protections from hundreds of thousands, including Morillo and his wife.
In June everything started to fall apart.
“It personally affected me really badly,” Morillo said. “Like I said, I was living in Colombia. I wasn’t having a bad life over there. I was OK. It wasn’t awesome, but it was OK. Then we finally got the approval for the program and my wife and I said, ‘It’s the United States. It’s like everybody says — it’s the American dream. We can go there and we can do better things than here in Colombia and be safe and all this stuff.’ For me, it was really nice, because I was going to see my sister again and be close to her.”
His voice cracking, Morillo added, “I wasn’t even here a year before everything changed. One day we were legal, the next we were illegal.”
Threatening letters from the federal government followed, instructing the family to leave or face severe penalties — including substantial fines and the risk of action against Nick, their sponsor.
Nick had vouched for his brother-in-law’s character, and as a result faced his own legal pressures. But for Nick, it was the feeling of betrayal from the federal government reneging on immigration programs and the ensuing mass deportations that frustrated him the most.
“We had been promised at least two years,” Nick said. “That window was supposed to give us hope and time to look at permanent solutions. Then, not only did they stop it — they backdated it. It wasn’t, ‘You need to leave in the future.’ It was, ‘You needed to leave months ago.’ Who does that to people who gave up everything to come here legally?”
The Morillos received notice in June that they needed to self-deport in April or face the consequences.
“How do you do that to people who have given up everything to come here and then backdate something?” Nick said. “There’s just nothing right about that, to retroactively cancel the status.”
Nick described the current U.S. immigration system as broken, explaining how it’s not any one party or one person but the resulting chaos of ping-ponging administrations.
Where one president opens the doors to immigrants and their families, giving thousands hope of a new life, another president has a more extreme reaction, quickly dissolving programs and erecting walls of indifference.
“That’s where you’re losing that humanity, that people piece, that this impacts people’s lives,” Nick said.
Immigration policy and the surge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has also had a profound effect on both families and their fear that the Morillos, or any person of color, could be extradited to a country they’ve never resided in.
“We were hearing stories of people being dropped off, whether it was Mexico or El Salvador, or being returned to their home country,” Nick said. “There’s a reason he fled Venezuela years ago. That’s the last place he wanted to go.”
Both the Morillos and the Shepard family faced a constant barrage of uncertainty as a result of the current immigration system. The letters they received threatened to fine Nick $1,000 a day if Morillo and his wife remained.
“We’re losing the human part,” Beixy said. “We want to put a human face on what’s happening. I’m a citizen and I have conversations with my husband, like, ‘Do we need to have a lawyer on standby?’ Because when people stop you, you can give them your documents and they are still going to arrest you. We are losing compassion. Change doesn’t start with anger. We start with understanding.”
Nick also described the government’s enforcement as not just bureaucratic but dehumanizing.
“He showed up, got a job, started contributing — never took any benefits,” Nick said. “But we got these letters anyway. It’s like they created this chaos and forced it on people who were doing everything right.”
Racial profiling and community anxiety have also compounded the sense of injustice.
“This isn’t only happening to noncitizens,” Morillo said. “Every day, you see Border Patrol or ICE pick up people on the streets. Sometimes, it turns out they’re U.S. citizens after all. But if you don’t look American, they’ll take you and figure it out later.”
Ultimately, with legal remedies stalled, Morillo faced an ultimatum. He had to leave the United States, a place where he initially thought he could transform his life with his wife and the family members he cared so deeply about. His American dream has dissolved.
“Right now, my goal is to return to Colombia and start over,” Morillo said. “We have a family petition going. Maybe that will help someday, but it could be years.”
The Shepards remain heartbroken and frustrated, ruminating over the splintering of their family, the lost opportunities of reuniting with the Morillos and other family members over Christmas and other holidays.
But both the Shepards and Morillos are hoping that Luis’ story can foster compassion and spur action that may open opportunities for his return in the future, but there is a distinct possibility that could take anywhere from five to 15 years.
“We’re losing the human side of these policies,” Nick said. “People need to actually talk to immigrants, hear what they’re facing. This isn’t some black-and-white issue. It’s not about left or right. It’s about real lives being upended by a broken system.”
For Morillo, the dream is on hold, but not fully extinguished. He’s left the support of his family members like Beixy, who choose to stand up and be heard during a time of turbulence in America.
“We can’t change what happened, but we can choose how we respond,” Beixy said. “We choose love, faith, and unity. We hope this story inspires others to look beyond politics and see the human side, families who love this country and believe in its promise of fairness and opportunity. We can’t fix every broken system overnight, but we can start by refusing to be divided and by choosing to care.”