The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri is rejoicing now that his husband is back in St. Louis after a yearlong separation following a routine immigration appointment in Mexico upended their lives.
In 2024, Bishop Deon Johnson and his husband went to Mexico for what they thought would be a routine green card appointment. His husband did his interview with the immigration officer, who saw no issues with his paperwork.
However, instead of the officer granting a green card, he gave his husband two options: Remain in Mexico for a year or return to the U.S., risk deportation and face being barred from the country for a decade. Johnson's husband came to the U.S. when he was a young child, and it was the only homeland he knew.
"Needless to say that was devastating for us, because we were just expecting a run-of-the-mill [interview]," Johnson recalled. "All of his paperwork [was] in order. But the immigration officers have pretty wide latitude in how they can determine this. I mean a woman who was in line behind us was told she needed to stay in Mexico for three years having just given birth nine months ago."
St. Louis Public Radio's Marissanne Lewis-Thompson spoke with Johnson about how the experience reshaped his family and the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Marissanne Lewis-Thompson: How did you process that your husband would not be coming home with you?
Bishop Deon Johnson: The first thing was to get him to someplace safe. Because we recognize that staying in Juárez was just not an option long term. We had to find a place where he could be safe. A place for him to stay that was easily accessible from St. Louis that I could get there. There were tears. There were lots of tears, but [we had] a limited window because I had to be back for work, [and] with the kids, all of that stuff. I think we all just went on adrenaline. It wasn't until later. This happened in January [of 2024]. So it wasn't until I went to go visit him in February [of 2024] that it actually really hit all of us what was going on. Throughout all of it, he kept saying, "I just want to come home." Because this is home. This is where family is. This is where kids and spouse and friends and this is where his roots are.
Lewis-Thompson: You and your husband have two kids. What was that conversation like explaining to them that their dad had been detained and you didn't know when or if he'd be coming home?
Johnson: That was a really difficult conversation to have. It involved lots of tears. Because I tried to explain to a preteen and an early teen that "Oh, we went for a routine interview and one of your parents isn't coming back home potentially for at least for a year." It was a big year for our daughter [who] was going to be turning 15. We were planning for a Quinceañera, and we had to cancel doing a Quinceañera because he wasn't going to be there. There were lots of life events that we just didn't do for that year. We tried as best as we could to incorporate him, but the conversation was really hard to say to a 14- and 12-year-old at the time, this next year it's just me.
They pretty much lost a year with a parent. I mean again granted we had technology to try and be in touch, but it is not the same thing as your parent putting you to bed. Or after a long day giving you a hug. The everyday, ordinary, boring things that we kind of take for granted, all of that disappeared for a year for two young people who were in a formative state in their life.
Lewis-Thompson: As this is happening in your personal life, you're also having to navigate this reality as the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, where there are many people in churches across the diocese experiencing this same thing. How did this shape how the diocese is working to protect those who are most vulnerable?
Johnson: It made it a lot more real, I think, for quite a few folks across the diocese. I didn't share all of the details with the entire diocese. I still had to do my job. I had to live out my calling. I didn't want to go visit a congregation and it turned out to be about me. What I did is, we shared it with the clergy. To ask them for their prayers, for their support. I asked them not to put it in the bulletins or on the website or anything like that, because again, we did not know what could come out of something very public like that. But it did mean that I had to speak out a little bit more about immigration and what that all meant. I think what it did is it shaped the diocesan response to the current situation.
Once he was back here in St. Louis we were able to share with the whole diocese kind of what was going on. It really did spur congregations that I would not have thought of to become and to declare themselves safe spaces for whoever walked in their doors. It's what in some ways spurred the beginnings of ministries like Abide in Love. We have one congregation that's offering opportunities for legal services. We have clergy who are serving as notary publics for documents and stuff like that. I think a lot of that came out of the experience of, I wasn't a statistic. I wasn't a voiceless, faceless, person out in the void that we can say, "Oh, we can disregard that." I was the bishop of the diocese. And if the bishop is going through this, we're all kind of going through this.
Lewis-Thompson: You are also an immigrant. You're originally from Barbados, but you're also a U.S. citizen. How did you ease your kids' worries about the potential of this happening to you?
Johnson: In the initial conversations, that was a question from one of the kids. Well, are they going to come for you? Are they going to make you leave the country? My mother, who is also an immigrant, lives with us, and so she's around to help with the kids. Is grandma going to go away? Because again, these are the fears that a 12- and 14-year-old are going to have. And so I had to assure [them that] I'm an American citizen. I'm naturalized. I'm not going to go anywhere. And if they came to try to take me away or something like that, I suspect that the 10,000-plus people that make up the Diocese of Missouri would have a little bit to say about us being taken away or something like that. But I really had to reassure them that I was not going to be taken away. I had to change my own routine. That if I traveled, just before bedtime, I would call to say: "Hey, this is where I am. I'm safe. I'm getting ready for bed. I hope you all are having a good time getting ready for bed."
Lewis-Thompson: How did this change your family dynamic?
Johnson: We live with that shadow constantly. And there are other families out there where that shadow is a lot more prominent. But we have it in the back of our minds, something could shift at any moment. I dread sometimes my phone ringing, because I'm like, 'OK, is this somebody calling me to tell me that my husband has been picked up and detained or something? Because again, this is the world we now live in. Where people with green cards are being picked up and detained. Where U.S. citizens are being picked up and detained. And it feels sometimes like nothing and nowhere is safe. And yet, we still have to live life. I still live in hope. We do the things that keep us grounded where we are and I think we have a better appreciation of what we have and where we are, because it does feel as though you know this could go at any moment. So let's enjoy the moment.
Lewis-Thompson: He made it back to St. Louis last year on Valentine's Day. How did that happen?
Johnson: We had gone in January [of 2025] to Juárez to do the final paperwork, and they took his passport. They took all of his stuff and said, "You know we'll get back to you." So we had done all of that. And while we were there, the day after his birthday, I got an email saying, "There's been an update on your case." And so, I said to him, "I think they may have done something with processing your green card." My husband, ever the skeptical one, was like, "No, I don't believe this." I was like, "You might want to go check your email. If they are sending me an update it's going to tell us [whether] you've been approved or not. We took a look and it says, "Visa granted." At first, it was complete disbelief. He was just like, "I don't believe it." I'm like, "It's telling you that your visa has been granted." I mean we literally had to refresh the browser like six times before he could recognize like yeah, this really is happening.
Lewis-Thompson: What was it about him not living in Mexico long enough that led to all of this?
Johnson: We don't know. He spent the year in Mexico when he went back to actually get his second interview. So we had to do the physical all over. Like all of the things had to be done all over again. When he went to go meet with the [immigration] officer this time, she looked at him and said, "Why did you take so long to go do your green card paperwork and to come in for your interview?" And he said, "Well, one of your officers told me I needed to stay in Mexico for a year." And I can quote what she said: "That doesn't make any sense. You have no reason for us to make you do that."
Lewis-Thompson: Was this all for nothing?
Johnson: Here he was stuck for a year and all of the paperwork in the system said he should have been granted his green card the first time we came. I mean, it really made me so angry that someone could be that arbitrary with other people's lives. It's what keeps me angry sometimes about what's going on now. The callousness in which immigrants and the people who are just seeking the same thing that every other person running around the United States in seeking for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If we're going to live into that, we can't just callously just disregard the dignity of humanity.
Lewis-Thompson: What has life been like for him and your family since?
Johnson: It's been a lot of joy. Being reunited there's still a little bit of fear obviously. Every once in a while he'll wake up in the middle of the night and go, "Oh, I just had to make sure that I actually was still here." The trauma of something like this and granted, he was not in the detention center. He was just told you cannot enter this country. So, it was self-detention in some ways, because you had to find a place to stay, but it's still traumatic to not be able to go home where all of your roots are.
Lewis-Thompson: Why was it important for you to share your family's story?
Johnson: Part of me being able to share my story and being able to say this is who I am is to demystify all of those stereotypes that people have as much as I can. But also to remind people that when you hear the word immigrant, we're not just talking about some nameless, faceless, group of people. When you hear a gay person, you're not talking about just some nameless, faceless, you're talking about actual people who have lives. Who deserve the same dignity, the same aspirations that you have. We're all desiring that same thing.
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