Leonardo Fausto was delivering pizzas in late May when an officer pulled him over for speeding. When he went to traffic court on June 3, he pleaded guilty to his speeding ticket. As he left the courtroom, an ICE agent, wearing a baseball cap and a t-shirt, was waiting for him in the hallway. Within ten seconds, Fausto was handcuffed and led out of the courthouse. He was eventually booked into the Butler County Jail, where he remains in custody, listed as a “hold for ICE”. “His wife called us, desperate, crying on the phone saying, ‘ICE took Leonardo,’ and we couldn't believe it,” said his immigration attorney, Maqueli Eldredge. Fausto and his wife left Brazil in 2021, after his attorneys said they were facing threats from a dangerous gang over a misunderstanding involving a family member. Fausto was not a member of the gang and does not have a criminal record, Eldredge said. Their asylum status was denied last year, but his attorneys had appealed the decision. Fausto was also under an order of supervision, meaning ICE could track him on his phone at any time. “Under the order of supervision, it tells immigrants, if they are allowed into the U.S., they have to abide by local ordinances and that is how they do it. So even a speeding ticket, that is a local ordinance. He pled guilty to that, that didn't happen before but it is happening everywhere now,” said Walter Messenger, also an attorney for Fausto. Fausto spends his days working in construction and his nights selling pizza with his wife, working to support their three young children. On weekends, they are involved in a local Brazilian church. “The kids cry every night asking for the father, and wake up crying, asking, 'Is daddy coming home today?'” Eldredge said. His attorneys said he had been attending regular meetings with ICE in Westerville and had been following all the “rules” when it comes to the asylum-seeking process. Now, they are hoping a judge will set a bond so Fausto can return to his family. They said he cannot legally be deported, because he does not have a deportation order. This comes as the Trump administration has set a goal to make 3,000 immigration related arrests daily. Representative Gary Click (R-Vickery) has introduced legislation that would strengthen immigration laws in Ohio and support federal immigration enforcement. The “America First Act” would make it a felony for an unlawful immigrant to enter Ohio. “We want to tell unlawful immigrants, if you are going to come in unlawfully, Ohio is not the place to settle,” Click said. His proposal would not target asylum seekers like Fausto. “We added language that says if a person is actually working on the process, trying to do things the legal way, a judge can grant them a 90 day stay while they get all their legal paperwork and do all the things they have to do and that stay can be extended indefinitely,” Click said. He said he is still working to learn the facts of Fausto’s case, but if he has gone through the process legally, he said he should be able to stay. “Unfortunately, there is no perfect system and mistakes are going to happen and I believe the system eventually bends toward justice and I think if Leonardo has done everything correctly the situation will rectify itself, I think he will be able to prove that and I think he will be able to stay if he has done everything lawfully,” Click said. Fausto’s attorneys hope to learn more about a bond hearing in the next few weeks.