A father who voted for Donald Trump has said he wishes he could turn back the clock and vote Democrat as his Honduran wife faces possible deportation.
Patrick Keating and his parents backed Trump, believing his immigration crackdown would target criminals. But the conservative Texas family now faces the possibility that Keating’s wife, Anyi Hernandez-Escobar, will have to leave the U.S. and their Houston home.
“If I could go back, if my vote would somehow change everything, I’d go back and vote Kamala (Harris) just so we don’t have to deal with this,” Keating told the Houston Chronicle.
Hernandez-Escobar crossed into Texas from Honduras in 2018, eight months pregnant. She spent four days in detention before authorities granted her temporary parole to remain in the U.S.
She later married Keating, who helped raise her son Daniel, now 7, and the couple welcomed a daughter, Emma, in May 2025.
Hernandez-Escobar attended required immigration check-ins while pursuing a way to remain legally in the country. Her marriage to a U.S. citizen did not automatically grant her legal status.
The couple’s I-130 and I-130A petitions were approved in June after a nearly two-year wait. But a Houston immigration judge subsequently denied Hernandez-Escobar’s request to temporarily close her immigration case while she pursued lawful permanent residency.
The family’s immigration attorney, Jennifer Lopez, attributed the decision to a June agreement between Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the Trump administration that eliminated a Biden-era policy allowing judges to administratively close certain immigration cases.
“Originally, the judge had told her, when Biden was in, ‘Go ahead and file your I-130 (petition to apply for a visa), come back to me and I will administratively close your case,’” Lopez said. “They did that, but by the time they got back to him, Trump had been sworn in and they had changed all the rules.”
Lopez said Hernandez-Escobar would now have to return to Honduras and apply as a foreign filer after waiting at least a year. She would then face another wait of between three and nine months for a visa interview.
“She’s a model person. She doesn’t commit crimes, and she supports her family. It’s just sad,” Lopez said.
Her 7-year-old son Daniel might also have to remain in the U.S.
Keating has raised the boy since he was about 18 months old but has no custodial rights. The family said Daniel’s biological father, who lives in Maryland, has no contact with his son and refuses to give up his custodial rights.
“I’ve raised him basically since he was a year and a half, but I have no custodial rights over him,” Keating said. “Only (Anyi) and his biological father do. But both parents have to sign off on the passport.”
The family hired an attorney to pursue Keating’s adoption of Daniel and explored whether he could stay with Keating’s parents if the rest of the family moved to Honduras.
Hernandez-Escobar, who is not eligible to vote, said she had also supported Trump’s pledge to deport criminals.
“There was a lot of crime in the country. I thought it was good to deport the bad people,” she said. “Now, it doesn’t matter if you’re a good person or a bad person.”
Keating’s mother, Ingrid, said the family’s experience has been “very stressful.”
“Immigration has been such a mess for so many years, but of course it’s easy not to pay too much attention when it’s not your immediate family,” she said. “Now, all of a sudden, it really brings it home.”
When previously contacted for comment, White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told the Daily Beast that “Americans sent President Trump back to the White House with a clear mandate to deport criminal illegal aliens.”
“Every single day the Trump Administration is delivering on his promise to the American people to remove murderers, pedophiles, rapists, and gang members from American communities,” she added. “Americans are grateful to the President for removing these criminals from their neighborhoods and for Making America Safe Again.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for additional comment.
