U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the federal agency drawn into the Kingsley family’s immigration crisis after Samuel Kingsley’s drunk-driving arrest exposes their undocumented status. Its involvement turns a family secret into an immediate threat of removal, but the narrative distinguishes that enforcement presence from the hearings and judicial decisions that determine whether the family can remain in the United States.

Entry into the Kingsley Family’s Case

The agency enters the family’s story through a chain of events that begins with Samuel’s acting ambitions and ends in a traffic collision. After an evening drinking with fellow actors, he drives into a parked police car. When the officer arrives, Samuel discloses the family’s history of coming to the United States and says that they are undocumented immigrants. The officer arrests him and contacts U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

That disclosure changes the meaning of the arrest for Samuel’s daughter, Natasha Kingsley. The family’s immigration status, previously something they had kept hidden, becomes the basis for proceedings that threaten to take Natasha from the only home she knows. She understands the cause as a sequence: her father’s night of public attention leads to a drunk-driving arrest, which reveals the family’s status and places their life in the United States at risk.

Removal Proceedings and the Limits of Agency Power

The family receives a Notice to Appear from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security a few weeks after Samuel’s arrest. At an initial hearing, they can accept Voluntary Removal or seek Cancellation of Removal. Samuel declines voluntary departure at that point, and the family pursues cancellation, hoping that Peter Kingsley’s U.S. citizenship will support their case.

Their lawyer explains that cancellation requires at least ten years of residence, good moral character, and proof that removal would cause extreme hardship to a qualifying U.S.-citizen relative. Although the family builds its strategy around Peter, the judge denies the case at the Merits Hearing. The lawyer advises against an appeal, concludes that the family has no viable case, and recommends voluntary departure as a way to avoid a deportation on their records and preserve some possibility of returning in the future. The episode presents a consequential distinction: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is contacted after Samuel’s arrest, but the family’s options and the decisive ruling are described through the immigration process and the judge, rather than as decisions made by the agency alone.

Natasha’s Attempts to Find Help

On the day she is due to leave, Natasha goes to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services building in Manhattan, hoping someone there can help her stay. She knows that she is desperate and does not believe in fate, but treats the visit as a last chance. Her appeal is misplaced institutionally: the attorney later points out that USCIS does not have jurisdiction over her problem. The scene separates her search for a remedy from the agency that has been called into the family’s case.

At the Fitzgerald law office, Natasha fills out forms about the removal process and her time in the country. One asks whether she would take up arms to defend the United States; although she would not, she checks yes. A paralegal tells her to explain what America means to her, why she wants to remain, and how she would contribute, because material that humanizes her may help the attorney. Natasha’s application for Brooklyn College and her family’s efforts to obtain a Social Security card with stolen numbers give her hoped-for future a concrete shape, but neither changes the outcome of the removal proceedings.

Narrative Significance and Outcome

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also becomes a shorthand for the scale of the obstacle facing Natasha and Daniel Jae Ho Bae. Daniel imagines an exuberant headline in which a teenager defeats the agency through a last-minute legal loophole and lives happily ever after with his one true love. The narrative immediately rejects that fantasy: no loophole produces a rescue, and Natasha is still being deported that night.

When Daniel learns that the judge has refused to overturn the Voluntary Removal, he sees Natasha’s full legal name on an official form and recognizes that there is no remaining intervention capable of keeping her in the United States. The agency’s presence therefore frames the crisis, but the book’s account does not make it the sole author of the family’s fate. Samuel’s disclosure, the family’s unsuccessful legal strategy, the judge’s decision, and the constraints of their undocumented status together close off the possibility Natasha had hoped to find.