‘This is my home’: Utah violinist speaks out after being released from ICE custody

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — The professional violinist who was detained by ICE on his wife’s birthday is speaking out after he was released yesterday.

John Shin, 37, was released from the Aurora, Colorado ICE detention facility yesterday. He was detained on August 20 while on a work trip to Colorado Springs, and he posted bond yesterday. Shin and his wife Danae Snow drove all night from Denver, and they just got back to Utah this morning at 6 a.m.

Now Shin is speaking out about his experience being detained and spending two weeks in ICE custody. “For my entire life, living in the United States, I always thought I was an American. All my memories are here,” he said. “I consider myself an American. This is my home.” He said that he’s been working towards getting his green card, so he never thought this would happen to him.

As part of Shin’s work, he had to go to a military base in Colorado, and that is what flagged him in the system and brought his residency status to the attention of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

On the day he was detained, Shin was contacted was contacted by HSI Special Agents who told him he needed to meet with them at the hotel where he was staying. Shin said that three agents interrogated him for 20 minutes, and he answered their questions to the best of his ability.

“I was handcuffed in front of the hotel parking lot, and I was taken to another office, a small location, where they booked me,” he described. After he was arrested, several hours later, he was taken to the ICE detention center in Aurora.

While he was being transferred, his wrists and ankles were shackled. “It was a very shocking moment for me,” he said. “I never thought I’d have to feel what it was like to have shackles on my ankles and my wrists, as if I was a very serious criminal, having murdered someone.”

“I was absolutely terrified,” Shin said. “Obviously, I cried all day. Shortly after being detained, the special agents gave me a three-minute phone call… A very short phone call to my wife. It was one of the worst moments of my life to have to make my wife cry on her birthday.”

Shin’s attorney Adam Crayk said that deportation proceedings are still going on, and that Shin is “completely” eligible for a green card, despite a previous impaired driving conviction on his record. Shin’s wife Danae is a U.S. citizen, and an impaired driving conviction does not disqualify someone for a green card, especially in a case like Shin’s, where he completed every requirement of his probation.

Shin entered the United States lawfully as a child alongside his family on a tourist visa. Later, his father applied for a student visa as he was a full-time student at the University of Utah. However, towards the end of his father’s time at the University, he got into a car crash. The family went through a period of hardship, and the visa lapsed because he was not able to renew it.

In 2013, Shin applied for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and he was granted it. He maintained DACA until 2019, when he received an impaired driving conviction. That conviction came at a very difficult point in Shin’s life, after his father was diagnosed with stage four glioblastoma: terminal brain cancer.

“It was the darkest time in my life. I wasn’t able to think clearly, and I just wanted to… It was just really dark times, and I wasn’t thinking straight, and it’s full of regrets if I recall those times,” he stated.

Crayk stressed that Shin did not receive a DUI conviction, despite what ICE reported to the press initially. He was convicted of impaired driving, which is a lesser charge. Even though Shin’s legal residency status lapsed over time, he is still eligible for a green card and later citizenship because his spouse is a citizen.

Normally, it takes 16.5 months to receive a spousal green card, which is actually significantly shorter than it was during Trump’s first term and the pandemic, according to Crayk. He said that the “right way” to get into the country is constantly evolving and changing, especially now.

“With the current admin’s mass deportation efforts, there are quotas, there are requirements…” Crayk explained. “John was a really, really easy low hanging fruit.”

John’s experience in the detention facility and his release

At the detention center, Shin said he spent 6 hours in a cold concrete cell before being transferred to a cell with three other people. He was on a block with 70-80 other detainees, most of whom were Middle Eastern and Chinese, with a few Europeans.

“Even when I was being released yesterday, I witnessed many, many more people coming into the detention center and being booked,” Shin described, but people were also being taken out constantly. He said that every day while he was there, someone would be deported or transferred somewhere else, usually with less than 10 minutes notice.

The detention center was cold, Shin said, and they all were sleeping on a thin mat on top of a metal frame. Each inmate had one blanket, but they needed more because it was so cold. Shin got sick while he was detained, and he is still recovering.

“I requested every day, for about six days, requesting for a pillow. They responded back saying yes, we will provide you with a pillow…” But after that, he didn’t see the case worker again. “I never got a pillow,” he said.

Shin described the facility as unorganized, with only one officer on duty for the entire block. While there weren’t any physical fights while Shin was there, he said he saw constant verbal arguments that came very close to becoming physical.

Shin said he felt a snese of connection with the other detainees. Most of them didn’t speak English very well, but Shin said almost all of them had similar stories to him: ICE agents called them one day and told them to come into an office to verify some information, and then they were detained. “It’s almost as if they were trapping or luring these people into locations,” Shin said.

He said that he was very depressed an emotional the first week. “I did not want to give up, because I have my family here, but there were times… It was like how am I going to get out of here, and how am I going to provide for my family and go back to the normal life I was living before?”

Things started looking up because Danae responded so quickly and got an attorney on his case. She also got word out to friends, family, and to the public. There was a benefit concert, and the musician community rallied around Shin.

“It was just overwhelming, and just when I thought there were no options and I might have to give up, there was hope again,” Shin said. “I don’t know how to thank my musician friends. They mean everything to me.”

Some Denver musicians who he didn’t even know visited him while he was detained, and he said that he felt overwhelmed by the strength of the Denver musician community. Seeing them waiting for him when he was released, he said they felt like they were already part of his family.

Now that he’s home, Shin said, “I’ve never felt so grateful to be out of that detention center and be home with my family.”

Crayk thinks Shin’s bond was processed quickly because ICE did not want him in that detention facility because of the attention brought to his case by the media.