ICE detained Great Neck resident Tomas Orellana outside a Mineola courthouse on Monday, Jan. 5.

Orellana, a Salvadoran native, has lived in the country for more than 20 years with his wife who is a U.S. citizen and eight children who are all U.S. citizens and attended Great Neck schools.

Orellana was attending a mandatory probation visit at the courthouse for a DWI conviction from 2023 before he was detained by ICE. This was Orellana’s second DWI.

Efforts to reach ICE were unavailing.

Orellana’s family found out about his arrest when they received a text message from him asking them to call his immigration attorney. 

Tomas Orellana’s wife, Claudia Orellana, has not been able to speak with her husband since he was taken into custody.

“I broke down,” she said. “Who expects this to happen to someone?”

Tomas Orellana was in the country with Temporary Protected Status, but his renewal was denied in 2024 because of his second DWI. 

Claudia Orellana said some of her first thoughts were about their children. Their youngest child is six years old, and they have an 18-year-old son who is in his first semester of college.

“How is he going to college if we don’t have the income?” Claudia Orellana said. She works as a health aide, but Claudia Orellana said her husband was the “breadwinner” of the family.

The couple met in Great Neck where Tomas Orellana was working for a local landscaping company. They later married, and Tomas Orellana acted as a father figure to Claudia Orellana’s child with special needs.

The Orellana family has raised over $5,000 on GoFundMe for bail and covering house expenses in just one day. 

Tomas Orellana was initially held in Nassau County Correctional Center in East Meadow, but his attorney, Byron Quintanilla, said he thinks Tomas Orellana has been transferred to a jail in New York City.

In 2024, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blackman made an agreement with ICE to temporarily hold its detainees.

Between February and October 2024, over 2,200 people detained by ICE were held at the East Meadow jail.

Quintanilla will be appearing in court on Tuesday, Jan. 13, in Manhattan to apply for Tomas Orellana’s release and to cancel his removal proceedings.

Until then, Claudia Orellana said she will be focused on raising awareness about her husband’s situation.

 “A lot of immigrants are so afraid to speak out,” Claudia Orellana said. “Even though we’re immigrants, we have rights. This is a free country.”