'To Think We Were Maga' — Three-Time Trump Voter Turns on President After Husband's 108-Day ICE Detention

They went to a Trump rally in Las Vegas in 2020. Sandra Hafraoui, 53, voted for the president three times: in 2016, 2020 and again in 2024. Her husband, Abdellatif, was right there with her, a Moroccan-born man who had spent 38 years building a life in New Jersey and believed, as his wife did, that Trump's immigration push was aimed at dangerous criminals. Not people like him.

That belief did not survive 11 August 2025, the morning ICE agents stopped the couple at Newark Liberty International Airport as they were about to board a flight to Fort Myers, Florida. Three men in plain clothes and a woman with a badge approached them. Abdellatif was handcuffed, placed into an unmarked van and driven away. Sandra was left standing at the gate with their luggage, with no idea where her husband had been taken. An airport worker noticed her crying and handed her a bottle of water. That was the last moment of normality for a very long time.

What Happened at the Gate

Sandra said: 'They looked at him and said his status is unclear,' she recalled. ''You're going with us.' Then the lady pointed at me and said, 'You don't want to make a scene here.'' No explanation was offered. No paperwork shown to Sandra. Just handcuffs and an unmarked van pulling away from the kerb.

Abdellatif, 60, had no criminal record. What he did have, though he says he never knew it, was a deportation order issued in absentia more than a decade earlier. Before he married Sandra, he had hired a New York-based attorney named Earl Seth David to file naturalisation paperwork on his behalf. David never told him about a scheduled immigration court hearing, and a removal order was issued when Abdellatif failed to appear. David was later convicted of running a large-scale immigration fraud scheme and sentenced to five years in prison in 2013. Abdellatif, unaware any of this had happened, kept renewing his work authorisation and got on with his life. ICE caught up with him at an airport gate 18 months into Trump's second term.

108 Days, Solitary, and a Near-Deportation

What followed was not a quick processing and release. Abdellatif was moved from New Jersey's Delaney Hall Detention Facility to Louisiana, then to Arizona. Roughly two and a half weeks into his detention, he was pressured to board a commercial flight and sign documents surrendering his legal rights. He refused. 'They told me if I didn't get on the flight, I would be punished,' he said. He was placed in solitary confinement for ten days.

He was later placed on a charter flight bound for Morocco, even though his immigration case was still being reviewed by a New Jersey court. It took direct intervention from US Representative Rob Menendez's office to halt the deportation and have him transferred back to New Jersey. He was released on a $15,000 bond on 26 November 2025, just before Thanksgiving. He now wears an electronic ankle monitor, attends regular ICE check-ins, and has been unable to return to the concierge position at a Midtown Manhattan residential building he had held for nearly two decades. 'I would like to go back to work, to feel normal again,' he said. 'To have my life back without all this fear and uncertainty.'

'You Ruined Our Life'

The couple estimates they have spent around $50,000 in legal fees and have launched a GoFundMe to cover ongoing costs. Sandra, reflecting on years of political loyalty, was unsparing. 'To think we were MAGA!' she said. 'You said you were going after the worst of the worst, but instead you ruined our life.' She had believed the crackdown was about criminals: gang members, people with violent histories. 'I thought they'd focus on criminals,' she said. 'We just want to be treated like people with rights. Not as problems to be managed.'

Why This Case Has Cut Through

The Hafraouis are one family, but the pattern their case reflects is broader. A Cato Institute analysis of ICE booking data found that since 1 October 2025, nearly three in four people booked into ICE custody had no criminal conviction, and nearly half had neither a conviction nor any pending criminal charges. USAFacts, a nonprofit that compiles government data, reported that as of late December 2025 more than 70,800 people were being held in ICE detention across the United States. Immigration attorneys have noted that decades-old removal orders, often the product of paperwork errors or missed hearings, are being enforced with increasing frequency against long-term residents who have built entire lives in the country.

What makes this case resonate beyond the usual immigration debate is the political identity of those at its centre. Sandra Hafraoui is not a political opponent of the administration speaking out; she is someone who endorsed its immigration agenda, campaigned for it and voted for it three times over. That is why her words have travelled as far as they have.