TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – A Tallahassee construction worker spent over five months in immigration custody after a raid at a construction site on Gaines Street in Tallahassee.
WCTV is working to learn more details surrounding why Faustino Macedo Ocampo was detained. He said he had been in a years-long immigration process when federal agents detained him at work in May.
He was abruptly pulled away from his partner of seven years, Amanda Parrish, and the five children they raised together.
“I was a little scared because I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Ocampo said. “I was sad. I was thinking about my little ones.”
Ocampo said he was transferred from Tallahassee to Miami, then to detention facilities in El Paso and Rio Grande, where he described uncomfortable conditions. “They only give you an aluminum blanket, and we were sleeping on the floor,” he said. “They tell you, you have to take a shower like every three days, it smelled so bad.”
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His wife, Amanda Parrish, said she relied on a phone location-sharing app to track his phone signal until they could speak on the phone regularly. “It was emotional,” she said.
Ocampo was released Nov. 18 at a community center in Texas, where the family reunited. “The kids got to him before I did,” Parrish said. “It was a beautiful scene for all of us.”
Ocampo said he returned to Tallahassee as a permanent U.S. resident after years of paperwork and a successful court hearing.
Ocampo said he plans to return to construction work and eventually apply for U.S. citizenship.
“I’m so happy to be home and spend time with my family,” he said.
Read more on https://www.wctv.tv
