Veteran Hannah, 30, said she now believes ‘America is broken’ and plans to move to Brazil after her husband was arrested when ICE agents burst into his interview room as he applied for a green cardA military veteran is leaving the US after ICE agents arrested her husband while he was in a visa interview for a green card.
Matheus Silveira, 30, was explaining why he wanted a green card when four ICE agents stormed into the room in the US Citizenship and Immigration Services building in San Diego, California and arrested him for overstaying. Matheus, a delivery driver, was then taken to an ICE detention centre, where he been kept ever since.
Now, Matheus and his 30-year-old wife Hannah – who served as a combat medic in the US army – are planning to leave the US and move to Brazil in a few weeks, as Matheus has been given a voluntary departure from the US, instead of deportation.
READ MORE: ICE agents ‘detain five-year-old boy’ and ‘use him as bait to snare relatives’READ MORE: Dad-of-two ‘suffocates to death’ in ICE detention centre after ‘five guards jump on him’Hannah said that she feels America is “broken” and feels like it will be “entirely unsafe to return” to her home country for the foreseeable future. Hannah, a lawyer, from San Diego, California, said: “It is entirely unsafe here with the efforts being deployed by this administration. A lot of us are concerned that Trump will find a way to stay in power.
“I am absolutely devastated that I have to give up everything. It feels so defeating. I am a veteran. I was in the military. I gave a lot to my country, and I feel like they have given me nothing. I don’t feel at home here anymore.”
Matheus moved to the US to study English in 2019 before meeting Hannah in 2022. Shortly after meeting, the pair got engaged and married in August 2024. Hannah said the couple planned to buy a house and start a family before Matheus was arrested by ICE agents.
She said: “Matheus had put so much work into being here and came for a better life. We were about to buy a house and open a business together. We intended to move to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to be closer to my family. But now we just feel unsafe here, we are scared.”
After ICE agents arrested Matheus at his green card interview on November 22, 2025, they took him to an ICE detention facility. Hannah claims Matheus was advised by lawyers that it was ok to enter the green card process despite his visa running out. Hannah said she has visited Matheus a few times and claims the family rooms are filled with posters saying “this will be easier if you just go home” and offering incentives to leave the US.
Hannah said: “It is all designed to make someone leave. He was served lunch when I saw him last; it was like a middle school-sized meal. He said they don’t feed him enough food. They are all put in a large cell block, which has 12-16 beds, but he said people were sleeping on the floor as there were not enough beds.”
Because he was previously charged with drink driving, Matheus was not entitled to bond as he was listed as a “danger to the community”. Both Hannah and Matheus have decided to leave the US and move to Brazil, where Matheus is from.
Hannah said she doesn’t recognise the US anymore – and is uncertain if they will ever return. She said: “I don’t feel at home here anymore. I cannot overstate how much I have to give up because my country isn’t there for me.
“The scariest part of it all for me is that Trump is either going to deport every immigrant in the US or he will do something, so this destruction will happen forever. America is broken. If we returned, we would be returning to a place we no longer recognise.”