A Bellaire family that supported Donald Trump in the last election is now confronting the possibility of being torn apart by his administration's immigration policies. Anyi Hernandez-Escobar, a Honduran woman who came to the United States in 2018, could be forced to return to Honduras and leave behind her 7-year-old son, Daniel, along with the rest of the life she built in Houston.
Hernandez-Escobar lives with her husband, Patrick Keating, and their 16-month-old daughter, Emma, according to the Houston Chronicle. She sought asylum at Eagle Pass during Trump's first term, arriving eight months pregnant, and was detained four days after entering Texas. She was later granted parole to temporarily remain in the country, gave birth to Daniel, and has attended every required immigration check-in since. She and Keating met in Texas, married, and moved to Houston two years before Emma's birth in May 2025.
Keating voted for Trump, while Hernandez-Escobar supported his promise to target criminals for removal, even though she herself is not eligible to vote. Now the couple says that same administration's policy shift has put their family on the brink of separation, with Daniel expected to stay behind for now.
How a Federal Case Upended a Family's Plans
The trouble traces back to a legal fight over administrative closure, a tool that had let immigration judges pause deportation proceedings so people could pursue other paths to legal status. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Department of Justice to end the Biden-era rule, and the case was filed and settled in a single day, the Houston Chronicle reported. Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor heard Paxton's argument that the policy amounted to de facto amnesty.
On June 22, 2026, O'Connor vacated the 2024 regulation and permanently barred the Department of Justice and its agencies from enforcing it, according to Wilner & O'Reilly. The firm notes that administrative closure never granted lawful status on its own; it simply removed a case from the active court calendar, and the ruling does not automatically recalendar every case that had been closed under the old rule. A Houston-based immigration judge subsequently denied Hernandez-Escobar's request to temporarily close her own case. A source identified in the Chronicle's reporting as Jennifer Lopez said the judge's decision stemmed directly from the June agreement between Paxton and the Trump administration.
Approved Petitions, But a Return to Honduras Required
The family's paperwork had actually moved forward. Hernandez-Escobar filed I-130 and I-130A petitions with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and USCIS approved them in June after nearly two years of review. But approval alone does not clear her to stay. Per USCIS, a relative who cannot apply for a green card through Form I-485 while in the U.S. may instead be eligible for an immigrant visa through consular processing at an embassy or consulate abroad — meaning Hernandez-Escobar must return to Honduras for a consular interview and visa application.
That trip carries serious risk. Once she leaves, she is barred from reentering the United States without a waiver of inadmissibility, and USCIS materials on waivers state that a provisional waiver covering unlawful presence does not take effect until a person has already left the country, attended the consular interview, and been found admissible by an officer. Compounding the problem, a waiver of inadmissibility can be granted only to immigrants who are not in active removal proceedings — the very posture the denied administrative closure request would have prevented.
Immigration lawyers say the numbers underscore what is at stake in cases like hers. The Texas attorney general's office cited July 2025 data showing median case-closure times of 11 years in immigration courts and 34 years at the Board of Immigration Appeals, according to RAICES. The organization also says its attorneys can no longer use administrative closure to pause removal proceedings for clients waiting on other legal pathways, a tool that, per a motion cited by Law&Crime, immigration courts had used since at least the 1980s to reduce docket congestion.
A Timeline That Could Stretch for Months
If Hernandez-Escobar cannot secure a waiver, her only other route would be to relocate to Honduras and apply as what's known as a foreign filer — but even that path requires her to wait at least a year before applying, and the foreign filer visa process itself can take three to nine months just to reach a visa interview. By contrast, the immigrant visa process normally takes only about three weeks once someone reaches that stage, underscoring how much the waiver question complicates her case.
Whichever route she is forced onto, Daniel cannot simply come along. His biological father lives in Maryland and has refused to surrender his custodial rights, and Keating has no custodial rights over the boy himself. The couple has hired a family law attorney to help Keating adopt Daniel, but for now the plan on the table has Keating, Hernandez-Escobar and Emma moving to Honduras — potentially nearly 2,000 miles from Houston — while Daniel stays behind for now.
Family Grapples With the Fallout
Patrick Keating's mother, Ingrid Keating, told the Chronicle that Anyi has always tried to do things the right way.
For now, the family is left navigating a legal maze with no clear exit: approved paperwork that cannot be used, a waiver that cannot take effect until she has already left the country, and a son who may have no way to follow.
