Jose Chicas speaks to the media outside St. John s Missionary Baptist Church in North Carolina, January 2021. | Screenshot: ABC 11
Jose Chicas spent the last three years hiding from Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Durham, North Carolina, church. He left the building on Jan. 22 after President Joe Biden signed an executive order prohibiting all deportations of illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States before Nov. 1, 2020, except for national security reasons.
“God gave the victory today,” he told a crowd outside the church. Then he returned home for the first time in over 1,300 days.
On Inauguration Day, Biden took several actions related to immigration, including a reversal of former President Donald Trump s executive order that called for stricter immigration enforcement. Homeland Security also issued a memo to pause certain deportations for 100 days. During that time, the department has been directed to review policies and practices concerning immigration