![(Left) Tae-ha Hwang and wife Xelena Diaz at the USCIS Los Angeles office, where Hwang was detained mid-interview. (Right) The marriage certificate submitted for Hwang’s marriage-based residency petition. The photo has been blurred for privacy reasons. [Courtesy of Xelena Diaz]](https://www.koreadailyus.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/1208-newsletter-Hwang.jpg)
(Left) Tae-ha Hwang and wife Xelena Diaz at the USCIS Los Angeles office, where Hwang was detained mid-interview. (Right) The marriage certificate submitted for Hwang’s marriage-based residency petition. The photo has been blurred for privacy reasons. [Courtesy of Xelena Diaz]
The arrest of 38-year-old Korean immigrant Tae-ha Hwang during what should have been a routine marriage-based green card interview is a stark reminder of how unforgiving the U.S. immigration system has become—and how a single overlooked obligation, such as updating an address, can derail an entire future.
Hwang, who arrived in the United States at three months old, walked into the USCIS office in downtown Los Angeles on October 29 with his U.S. citizen wife, confident they were nearing the final step toward stabilizing their life together. The couple had married earlier this year and were planning a wedding ceremony in Korea next year.
Their interview began normally: a joint conversation, followed by separate questioning, just like thousands of other couples seeking permanent residency. But moments after Hwang’s solo interview concluded, ICE agents entered the room and handcuffed him on the spot.
What triggered the arrest was not fraud, a criminal record, or any misconduct in his current marriage. It was a past in-absentia removal order—a deportation order issued by an immigration court because Hwang had failed to appear for a hearing he never knew existed. And he never knew because he had never updated his address with USCIS after his first marriage ended.
Years earlier, Hwang had obtained a conditional green card through a previous marriage. When he later divorced in 2021, USCIS scheduled a hearing to determine whether to remove the conditions on his residency—a critical step for maintaining legal status. But because Hwang had not filed an address update, every notice, including the hearing notification, was mailed to his old residence. When he didn’t show up to the hearing, the court issued a removal order in May 2024.
Hwang says he never received any notice. DHS responded bluntly: address reporting is the immigrant’s responsibility, and failure to update it—even unintentionally—does not excuse missing a hearing. From that moment, Hwang unknowingly became undocumented.
This bureaucratic misstep turned catastrophic during his second green card application. When USCIS reviewed his file and discovered the outstanding removal order, the interview instantly became an enforcement action. Hwang was taken into custody, held for 30 hours on the floor of a temporary holding room with no beds, and later transferred to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center.
Hwang’s story illustrates a broader trend. Immigration attorneys in Southern California report that in just the past few weeks, at least nine immigrants were handcuffed during family-based green card interviews in San Diego alone—many of them with no criminal record and all in the presence of their U.S. citizen spouses or children. Historically, overstaying a visa or missing paperwork rarely led to on-the-spot arrests during interviews. But in today’s enforcement climate, even small irregularities can trigger immediate detention.
Legal experts say Hwang’s ordeal underscores two increasingly important obligations: timely address updates (Form AR-11) and checking immigration court records before any major filing or interview. The law requires immigrants to report a new address within 10 days of moving. Failure to do so, as Hwang learned painfully, means USCIS and the immigration court continue sending all correspondence—including Notices to Appear—to the old address, with devastating consequences.
Even those applying through stable family categories are not exempt. If a record shows anything unresolved—a denied adjustment, an abandoned petition, a failed marriage-based filing, or even a vague memory of prior paperwork—attorneys urge applicants to check the immigration court system by A-number. Many discover, too late, that a hearing took place without them and that a removal order is already in their file.
Fortunately, Hwang’s attorney successfully filed a Motion to Reopen, and a judge has scheduled a new hearing for March 27. For now, this gives him a chance to pursue bond and fight his case.
But his story should serve as a warning to thousands of immigrants who assume that marriage to a U.S. citizen guarantees protection. It does not. The system has become stricter, less forgiving, and more willing to enforce even the smallest lapse.
In today’s immigration landscape, updating an address is not a formality. It is survival.
By Mooyoung Lee [lee.mooyoung@koreadaily.com]
