Federal immigration authorities detained a South Korean national who has spent much of his life in the United States during a recent marriage-based green card appointment, his wife said.
Xelena Diaz, 29, said officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took her husband, 39-year-old Taeha Hwang, into custody on October 29 at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Los Angeles, where the couple had arrived for what they thought would be a routine interview.
Diaz said she and Hwang, who married in February after meeting through a mutual friend several years earlier, were preparing for a formal wedding ceremony in South Korea next year and needed his paperwork in order first.
“In order for us to be able to travel to Korea for our wedding, we needed to get everything situated,” Diaz told Newsweek. “Right now, he couldn’t travel because he had a conditional visa from his previous marriage.”
According to Diaz, Hwang’s failure to update his address after a 2021 divorce resulted in a removal order issued in May 2024, tied to his prior conditional green card. Hwang later maintained he never received notice of the immigration court hearing, but Diaz said federal officials emphasized that he was required to report any change of address.
“Genuinely, he didn’t receive it, or he would’ve shown up for this court hearing,” she said. “Because he didn’t show up for this court hearing in May 2024, he was issued a deportation order.”
Diaz, who lives in Los Angeles, said the couple was “blindsided” when Hwang was suddenly taken into custody. Staff at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California confirmed to Newsweek that he remained detained there as of Wednesday.
“When we showed up for our green card appointment, they detained him because there was a warrant issued last year for his removal,” Diaz said. “I mean, they had approved us for the green card interview, we paid like almost $5,000 in fees for this and we really didn’t know. I thought maybe they would’ve issued us something to correct it.”
Hwang, who previously worked as a waiter in Los Angeles, has now been detained for more than a month. Diaz said a judge halted his deportation late last month and set a new hearing date for March 27.
She is hopeful he may soon be granted bond following a federal court decision in late November that expanded access to bond hearings for detained immigrants with no criminal history, after the Trump administration ended that policy in July.
“We’re just trying to get him out,” she said.
In an email to Newsweek on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said, “On Oct. 29, 2025, Los Angeles Enforcement and Removal Operations officers arrested Taeha Hwang, an illegal alien from South Korea, who illegally overstayed his F-1 student visa, ignored a notice to appear before an immigration judge, broke the laws of this country, and who was issued a final order for removal from an immigration judge over a year ago on May 20, 2024.”
The spokesperson added: “President Trump and Secretary Noem are committed to restoring integrity to the visa program and ensuring it is not abused to allow aliens a permanent one-way ticket to remain in the U.S. Hwang will remain in ICE custody pending immigration proceedings. Ignoring U.S. immigration law does not grant anyone the right to remain in the United States. Those who violate the law will ultimately have to answer to federal law enforcement.”
Diaz, who previously worked as a model and esthetician in Florida, said she first met Hwang through a mutual friend in 2022. They began dating two years later and had a civil marriage ceremony in Los Angeles on February 6, she said.
Hwang was born in South Korea and first came to the United States as a 3-month-old in 1986. He returned to South Korea in 1988, came back to the U.S. in 2000, then left again to complete his mandatory military service between 2007 and 2010. Afterward, Diaz said, he lived in the United States with lawful status through a combination of family and student visas and later a conditional green card.
“He just missed this one step,” Diaz said. “I think he thought he was fine. People think when they get married, you have the green card and you’re fine — I mean, essentially you are, but there’s things you have to do. He missed that part.”
To help with legal and related expenses, Diaz has launched an online fundraising campaign for her husband, whom she describes as “generous, hilarious, and intelligent.” As of late Wednesday, more than $6,300 in donations had been raised.
“When I first met him in Los Angeles, I was immediately drawn to his contagious laugh, his compassionate kindness, and the graceful way he carried himself,” she wrote on the fundraising page. “Taeha has had to be strong from a very young age. When he was a child, his sister was diagnosed with cancer, and his mother’s relatives rotated caring for him during that difficult time. Despite these early challenges, he grew into a hardworking and compassionate man. For over 20 years, he has built his life in Los Angeles, working tirelessly as a waiter to support himself and contributing to his community.”
Diaz said Hwang has no criminal record but is still being held in what she described as an overcrowded facility while his case moves forward. She last spoke with him late Tuesday.
“The conditions are not great,” she told Newsweek. “He told me the A/C was broken for like a week and they were melting; he said the water is, like, white.”
She also recalled the moment she realized their green card appointment had taken a devastating turn on October 29.
“I feel like I didn’t think anything was really wrong until literally ICE agents came up to me and told me they detained him,” she said. “They had to keep repeating to me because I wasn’t hearing — I was in shock. I couldn’t understand, I was crying.”
