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In Lumpkin, Georgia, families gathered at El Refugio, a hospitality house that offers free meals and lodging to visitors. It hosted Martín Verdi and Débora Rey, Argentine Americans who drove nine hours from North Carolina to see their son.
Their son, Agustín Gentile, is 31 years old and a father of two U.S.-born children. He is currently detained at Stewart Detention Center, the second-largest detention center in the country. His parents say they never imagined their vote for Donald Trump in 2024 would lead to this moment.
“He said he was going to go after criminals who came illegally,” Rey said. “But he didn’t say he was going to do this, that he was going to go after people who have been here for a long time.”
Her husband added the words that now hang over their lives: “We feel betrayed, tricked.”
Targeting the Wrong People
Gentile has lived in the U.S. since childhood and holds a green card. He was detained after returning from a trip abroad, with immigration officials citing a 2020 misdemeanor conviction that had already been resolved. Now, his parents must confront the fact that their son sits behind bars in orange prison garb alongside undocumented immigrants, a reality they never thought would apply to their family.Verdi is unsure what to tell her grandkids about the situation. “They ask, ‘Where is my daddy?’ And we can’t tell them, ‘Daddy is in jail.’ We had to lie to them because we didn’t want to hurt them.”
Attorneys warn that green card holders with even minor or years-old offenses are now at risk. Under Trump’s new “zero tolerance” approach, legal status offers little protection.
A Broader Crackdown
The Stewart Detention Center has become a symbol of the Trump administration’s broader sweep. Green card holders, student visa holders, and even long-settled families are finding themselves pulled into detention or deportation proceedings.For Verdi and Rey, that shift feels like a betrayal of the promises Trump made on the campaign trail. “During the campaign, he gave the example of criminals who had killed people,” Verdi said. “That has nothing to do with cases like these.”
Broken Trust
At El Refugio, the couple met families with fewer resources and even fewer protections. They shared meals with children who were waiting to see their detained fathers, and left shaken.What struck them most wasn’t only their own pain, but what they saw around them. Families without lawyers. Children waiting in borrowed clothes to see fathers they might never live with again. The contrast was stark: as U.S. citizens, they had options, but many others had none. That realization left them shaken.
For the couple, the vote they cast now feels like a gamble with their son’s future. What once felt like loyalty has curdled into doubt. They believed the promises, but what they see now feels like betrayal written into policy.
From Loyalty to Disillusionment
Immigration was once one of Trump’s strongest cards with his base. But as his policies reach into the lives of permanent residents and legal immigrants, the ground is shifting. Recent polling shows growing dissatisfaction even in states that once backed him, as voters begin to connect the rhetoric with the reality.For families like this one, the impact is no longer theoretical. Their trust was leveraged into a ballot, and that ballot has become a trapdoor. They describe the shift as going from an open door to one locked with bolts, shutting them out of the very future they thought they were securing.
Now they are faced with impossible choices. If their son is forced out, they may follow. The promise of safety and belonging has been replaced with a single conclusion: “Freedom above all—even if it means leaving the country we thought was ours.”
The Human Cost of Broken Promises
Stories like this highlight the real cost of policies that were sold as “tough on crime” but are sweeping up families who believed in Trump’s vision. For many, the promise of security has become a reality of separation, detention, and despair.At Stewart, as families wait in a modest hospitality house for visitation hours, the consequences of broken promises are written in their faces. Supporters who once cheered Trump’s stance on immigration now wonder how their trust could be repaid with such suffering.
If you once believed in Trump’s promises and now feel betrayed by what has happened to you or your family, we want to hear from you. Share your experience with Trump Betrayed Me and help others see the truth behind the policies.
About The Snark Knight LLC
The Snark Knight LLC exists as a journalistic project to tell hard truths with courage, wit, and clarity. Through projects like Trump Betrayed Me and Moral Cowardice, we document stories of betrayal, expose failures of leadership, and celebrate acts of moral courage. Our belief is simple: truth matters, cowardice corrodes, and stories can still spark change.
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