Trump-voting couple moan about immigration crackdown as they face having to move 2,000 miles away... claiming they're too 'good' to be deported

They voted for Donald Trump because they believed his immigration crackdown would expel criminals – never imagining that the consequences of those policies might one day reach their own family.Now, less than a year into Trump’s second term, Patrick Keating and his parents are facing the possibility that his Honduran wife, Anyi Hernandez-Escobar, could be forced to leave the United States, taking their 16-month-old daughter with her while the seven-year-old boy she has raised could be left behind.For the conservative Bellaire family, an issue they had largely viewed through the lens of border security and harboring criminals has suddenly become deeply personal. 'If I could go back, if my vote would somehow change everything, I’d go back and vote Kamala just so we don’t have to deal with this,' Keating said.Hernandez-Escobar came to the United States from Honduras in 2018, eight months pregnant and fleeing what she described as a desperate situation. She was detained for four days after crossing into Texas and was then granted parole to remain temporarily in the country.Over the years she reunited with her sister, built a new life in Texas, attended her required immigration check-ins and gave birth to her son Daniel. She later met Patrick and the couple married, with Patrick becoming a father figure to Daniel and in May 2025, they welcomed their daughter Emma.For years, meanwhile, Hernandez-Escobar’s immigration case moved slowly through an increasingly complicated system as she sought a lawful way to remain in the country. Anyi Hernandez-Escobar and Patrick Keating supported Donald Trump at the ballots. Now, the couple say those same policies they pushed for could send their family packing and moving nearly 2,000 miles away The couple say they have done everything they could to navigate a complicated immigration system. But their case has now reached an immigration court at a time when the Trump administration has moved to tighten enforcement and undo Biden-era policies that allowed some cases to be temporarily put on holdThe couple knew that marrying a US citizen would not automatically confer Hernandez-Escobar legal status, just as having American-born children would not by itself prevent her removal. But they believed they were following the available legal process, and in June their I-130 and I-130A petitions were finally approved after almost two years of waiting.Then the ground shifted beneath them.A Houston immigration judge rejected Hernandez-Escobar’s request to temporarily close her removal proceedings while she pursued the next stage of her application.Her attorney, Jennifer Lopez, said the decision followed a June agreement between Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the Department of Justice that ended a Biden-era policy allowing immigration judges to administratively close certain cases.Lopez said that, under the previous policy, the judge had indicated he was prepared to close Hernandez-Escobar’s case while she pursued an immigration pathway through her marriage.'Originally, the judge had told her, when Biden was in, "Go ahead and file your I-130, come back to me and I will administratively close your case,"' Lopez said. 'They did that, but by the time they got back to him, Trump had been sworn in and they had changed all the rules.'That change has left the family facing a choice that, only months ago, they could scarcely have imagined.Because Hernandez-Escobar entered the country without authorization, she cannot simply remain in America while applying for her green card. Under the route her attorney described, she would need to leave for Honduras and seek an immigrant visa through the US consular process, while also obtaining a waiver of inadmissibility. Ingrid, Keating's mother, said she still supports Trump on many issues and believes tougher border enforcement and action against gang members are important. But she said the family’s circumstances had changed the way she viewed the immigration debateThe problem is that the waiver is available only to immigrants who are not in removal proceedings. Administrative closure would have temporarily taken Hernandez-Escobar out of that predicament. With that option no longer available, her attorney says the family may have little choice but to relocate to Honduras.And that is where the family encounters yet another hurdle, Hernandez-Escobar’s seven-year-old son Daniel may not be able to go with her.Patrick has helped raise Daniel since the boy was about 18 months old, but he has no legal custodial rights. Daniel’s biological father, who lives in Maryland, has reportedly refused to surrender those rights and does not communicate with his son.The family is now paying a family-law attorney to explore whether Patrick can adopt Daniel, while also considering whether the boy could remain with his grandparents if his mother, stepfather and baby sister have to leave.'I’ve raised him basically since he was a year and a half, but I have no custodial rights over him,' Patrick explained. 'Only Anyi and his biological father do. But both parents have to sign off on the passport.'His greatest fear is that Daniel could become trapped in a legal limbo.'The scary part would be that Daniel can get lost in the legal foster care system, or somehow end up with a man he doesn’t know,' he said.The family’s predicament is all the more striking because Keating and his parents supported Trump at the ballot box, believing his immigration policies would primarily target criminals and people who posed a threat. For Hernandez-Escobar, the consequences could be particularly severe. If she leaves for Honduras, the family fears her seven-year-old son Daniel may have to remain in America because of an unresolved custody dispute with his biological fatherHernandez-Escobar, who cannot vote herself, said she had supported Trump’s promise to remove criminals from the country.'There was a lot of crime in the country. I thought it was good to deport the bad people,' she said. 'Now, it doesn’t matter if you’re a good person or a bad person.'As the family contemplates a possible move to Honduras, Keating's mother-in-law Ingrid faces the prospect of caring for Daniel as she and her husband approach retirement – something neither had ever expected.'We’ll do what it takes to get through this,' she said. 'It’s been very stressful because we know it stresses their family. It is a different world from what my husband and I anticipated.'Yet for all the turmoil, her position on Trump remains more complicated than a simple change of heart.'Immigration has been such a mess for so many years, but of course it’s easy not to pay too much attention when it’s not your immediate family,' she said. 'Now, all of a sudden, it really brings it home.' 'I still like a lot of what he’s done, though not everything,' she said. 'When you’re going for the gang members and closing the borders, I think that’s really important.'What she cannot accept, however, is the prospect of a child being separated from his parents.'Daniel needs to be with his parents and his sister,' she said. 'He loves them dearly. He loves us, but as his grandparents. But children need to be with their parents.'The Daily Mail has reached out to Keating for comment.