Couple Has to Rush to Marry After Boyfriend Faces Deportation (Exclusive)

In early May, Angie Figueroa and Ganesh Oduko visited a jewelry store in New Jersey to try on wedding bands — the next step in their two-year courtship as they continued to plan for an intimate marriage ceremony later this year.

On Aug. 13, the couple married under circumstances they did not expect: They exchanged vows in a chapel at the detention center in Newark, N.J., where Oduko has been detained since June, in front of their attorney and another member of his firm, who were there as witnesses.

Figueroa wore a dress that complied with the detention center’s code — a sage frock from Charlotte Russe — while Ganesh, who has slimmed down significantly since his detainment, wore the dark blue uniform provided to detainees.

His attire was a stark contrast to the “clean and classic” black tuxedo Figueroa says she had envisioned him wearing on their wedding day.

They recited traditional vows during the roughly 15-minute ceremony and were allowed to hold hands and kiss but have no photos to mark the occasion, as cameras were not permitted.

Though they both believed they might cry, neither did.

Their initial plans were upended in June, when Oduko was detained by a Homeland Security Investigations agent in Bloomfield, N.J., as he left his apartment for work one morning.

Oduko, 25, came to the U.S. from Ghana in January 2022 on a student visa but withdrew from school to work and save up money with a plan to return, according to Figueroa, Oduko’s attorney and a religious sister whose volunteer farm program he participated in two years ago.

He was arrested on June 13 for having violated the terms of his visa because he fell out of status when he was no longer enrolled in school.

Federal officials have been cracking down on a wide array of immigration cases after President Donald Trump successfully campaigned on such a platform last year, though some of the detainments and deportations have stirred controversy.

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Oduko and Figueroa believe that by expediting their plans to marry, and because Oduko has no criminal record, it should increase his odds of being allowed to remain in the U.S.

He was granted bond earlier this week, and his attorney expects his release soon.

“Any young person, even an older person who remembers their wedding day, will definitely bristle at something like that, but that’s what’s necessary to hopefully, hopefully, get him out of there,” says Gina Fleming, 73, from the sisters of St. Dominic in Amityville, N.Y., where Oduko had volunteered.

For her part, Figueroa says she tries not to entertain the possibility that Oduko could eventually be deported and, instead, has leaned on her Christian faith.

Oduko attended Caldwell University in Caldwell, N.J., where he was studying biology until 2023. He participated in an internship at the Sisters of St. Dominic of Amityville’s Homecoming Farm on Long Island during that summer, where he learned organic farming practices that he hoped to teach others in his native Ghana, Fleming says.

She is one of about two dozen sisters who wrote letters of support for him.  Hers was among those his attorney gathered and submitted as part of Oduko’s bond redetermination request.

In her letter, Fleming writes that Oduko did “very demanding work” “with a smile each day” on the sisters’ farm and that they got to know him well.

In an interview with PEOPLE, she says they would eat meals and pray together daily. She says Oduko was always mannerly and that even after his internship ended, he stayed in touch with the sisters and visited them.

One visit stands out in her mind.

“One of the sisters had kind of depleted in her energy level and wasn’t in the dining room any longer,” Fleming recalls. “He insisted on going up to her room in our mother house to see her before he left.”

The sisters — whose mission is to help those who are marginalized and without a voice — were unsure whether their letters would have any impact, Fleming says, but they felt compelled to show their support for Oduko and to vouch for his character and work ethic.

“It doesn’t matter what your politics are. These are human beings, for God’s sakes,” she says. “And no matter how you slice it, everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity. This is not dignified.”

A Relationship Interrupted

Oduko and Figueroa met through mutual friends and have been together since their first date.

They were on the phone on the morning of his arrest in June — she lives on Staten Island in New York with her family — as he was on his way to work at a bakery. Figueroa says she heard authorities instruct him to put his hands behind his back before the call dropped.

He called her back a few minutes later and told her that he’d been detained.

“It was just very emotional,” says Figueroa, who recently earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology and works as an applied behavior analysis therapist.

Figueroa immediately informed Oduko’s brother in Ghana, Shiva, of his arrest, and the siblings initially kept it from their mother, Rita, to avoid upsetting her. Oduko and Figueroa soon hired an immigration attorney, Alexander Mena, who is working on both his detention and deportation cases.

“This is not normal, what is happening,” Mena says. “It all has basically been a steady ratcheting up since January.”

Mena says it appears Oduko was not the person federal authorities were looking for the day of his arrest. (Neither the Department of Homeland Security or Immigration and Customs Enforcement responded to requests for comment.)

Under a previous administration, Mena says, Oduko likely would not have been detained because he has no criminal record.

“They would have basically started the deportation proceedings, but he wouldn’t be in the detention facility while that happens,” Mena says. Oduko would probably have been put under supervision of both ICE and a separate company, both of which would have required he check in with them.

But under Trump, the process has changed markedly. The White House has insisted their policies are about proper law enforcement and securing the country against migrants who shouldn’t be here.

“The goal posts are shifting from mass deportation to mass detention and deportation,” he says.

When a person who has an ongoing immigration proceeding gets married, there is a heightened standard to prove their marriage is bona fide and that they didn’t just get married for immigration paperwork, Mena says.

Among the things he hopes will work in Oduko’s favor are the number of years he has been in the U.S., no criminal record, his having interned with the religious sisters on Long Island, the sisters’ letters of support and now, his marriage to a U.S. citizen.

Still, there are no guarantees.

“This is just deeply reflective of an unjust system, in my view,” Mena says, “and forcing people to make these kinds of decisions.”