Fonzie Andrade blends in easily in León, Mexico — dark curls, easy smile, casual clothes. But the moment he speaks, the Alabama drawl gives him away. “No eres de por aquí,” people tell him. You’re not from here. He knows that. At 26, Fonzie is a man caught between two countries. He grew up in Blount County, Alabama — chicken farms, covered bridges, Friday night football, and fierce loyalty to Donald Trump. Trump won nine out of every ten votes there in 2024. Fonzie proudly posted his support online. He would have voted for Trump, if he had been allowed to vote.
“I love my Mexican culture, but at the end of the day, no disrespect to nobody. America, Alabama is where I grew up,” he said. “That’s where all my memories are. That’s what hurts me.” Fonzie pledged allegiance to the American flag every morning for 13 years in school. He played football at J.B. Pennington High. He dreamed of becoming a police officer, maybe even a U.S. marshal. Later, he chased another dream — becoming the youngest NFL referee in history. “I pledged allegiance to the American flag for 13 years of my life every morning in school,” he said. “And I meant every word.”
In July, when he showed up to meet a court referral officer over misdemeanor marijuana charges from years earlier, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were waiting. Three months in ICE detention followed. Then shackles. A flight to Texas. A forced walk across a bridge into Mexico. “Once I crossed into Mexico I was like, that’s it,” he said. “I don’t know when I will be able to come back, but I’m here now.” His record included two minor marijuana possession charges. He once ran briefly from police, then stopped. “That was really stupid on my part,” he said. “I knew I could go to jail, but I didn’t think they would send me to another country.”
Under Trump’s renewed deportation push, arrests and detentions surged nationwide. In Alabama alone, immigration-related arrests jumped sharply over the past year. Many deported had no serious criminal record. Fonzie’s case drew attention because he was deeply woven into his community — Baptist church on Sundays, youth group on Wednesdays, football on Fridays. He had a fiancée, Bralie Chandler, and an 18-month-old son, Glen. “He’s never been in any serious trouble,” said Donald Nation, a longtime mentor. “You know, he had a little misdemeanor for marijuana. How many kids would get deported for that?”
In court last October, an immigration judge told Fonzie there was little she could do. He had to accept “voluntary departure” if he hoped to return someday. When the ruling came down, his toddler clapped. “He began to clap and yell ‘Yaaay!’” Fonzie recalled. “I couldn’t speak. Everything seemed far away.” Bralie remembers it clearly. “Then Glen sees Fonzie and me crying, so he starts bawling his eyes out, screaming ‘Dadda,’” she said. “They took him away.” Fonzie was not allowed to hug them goodbye.
He was deported to León, where he reunited with his father — who had also been deported years earlier. They had not seen each other in person in more than a decade. “For me there is no way to explain it,” his father said. “From the moment I saw him coming down from the bus I wanted to go and hug him. Yes, we cried.” Now Fonzie lives in a small two-room home. His father and stepmother sleep on the floor so he can take the bed. He struggles to find work. His Spanish is limited. Filling out job applications is difficult. “What kind of jobs is there for me?” he asked. “If I can’t go fill out an application in Spanish, I have no business working for that company.”
At night, he streams Alabama football games online, studying referees instead of cheering. “When I’m out on the field, for those eight or 10 seconds, it’s literally the only time I don’t think about nothing else,” he said. He misses Hunt Brothers Pizza. He misses his pickup truck. He misses home. In the county where he grew up — where loyalty to Trump runs deep — people like him were precisely who the president promised to remove. “I believed in America,” Fonzie said. “I thought I was part of it.”
He can apply to re-enter the United States in four years. It will be difficult, expensive and uncertain. He says he still wants to return “the right way.” “My home is in Alabama and it will forever be my home,” he said. “One way or another, God willing, I will be back.” For now, he remains in a country he barely knows — deported under a policy championed by the very president he once supported. And in León, when strangers hear his accent, they remind him again: No eres de por aquí. You are not from here.
