They planned to marry this year. An ICE arrest near the King of Prussia mall changed everything.

Amanda Souza and Andres Paredes Morales moved quickly for a young couple in a budding relationship.

Just months after they met at their workplace, the Fogo de Chão steakhouse in King of Prussia, the 23-year-old Paredes Morales proposed to Souza.

Paredes Morales wanted to “do the right thing,” Souza said, presenting her with a ring in front of her mother in the family’s Norristown home in March.

“He told me many times, ‘In the future we’re gonna be OK, and I’m gonna help you,’” Souza said.

But Souza didn’t think that before the summer was through, she would be the one trying to help her fiance out of impending detention at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in central Pennsylvania.

On July 31, four plainclothes immigration agents detained Paredes Morales while he was working as a prep cook for his other employer, the District Taco restaurant at the King of Prussia Town Center, according to Souza.

A video taken by one of Morales’ coworkers shows Paredes Morales wave back to the kitchen as he is led out by agents who, according to Souza, said they wanted to question him outside after receiving a complaint that he was involved in a crime.

Paredes Morales does not speak English and called Souza, who said the agents would not share details about the complaint or whether there was a warrant for his arrest as she spoke with them by phone while rushing to District Taco.

Souza was five minutes away from the restaurant when an agent told her Paredes Morales had already been taken away.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Paredes Morales’ detainment comes as Montgomery County continues to see a flurry of ICE activity, with agents raiding local businesses and rounding up undocumented workers on immigration violations.

Norristown, the county seat, has become a particular hotbed, and community advocacy groups like MontCo Community Watch have tracked at least 65 ICE arrests in the county since May.

Across the country, ICE arrests have doubled since President Donald Trump took office, and the number of migrant detentions is at an all-time high, according to ICE data.

Paredes Morales, a Venezuelan who immigrated in 2024 and obtained a work authorization permit, has no criminal record in the U.S. or Venezuela and has been in the country for less than a year, according to Souza.

He received a temporary authorization to stay in the United States via humanitarian parole, and is awaiting an immigration court hearing scheduled for May 2026 after applying for an extended visa this spring, Souza said. He was carrying his permit at the time of his arrest, she added.

“He’s always working,” Souza said. “I live with him. There’s no crime.”

Paredes Morales migrated to the U.S. to seek a better life and a respite from rampant violence and government corruption in his home country, Souza said.

He took on two restaurant gigs near the bustling King of Prussia Mall, sending extra money back home to his mother in Venezuela when he could.

The work permit Paredes Morales obtained through DHS expires on May 21, 2026, according to documents viewed by The Inquirer.

Alexis Price, a Montgomery County-based immigration attorney who is representing Paredes Morales, said she was not authorized to share details about her client.

However, asked whether there was a pending criminal case against Paredes Morales, Price said, “To my knowledge, there isn’t one.”

Scenarios similar to Paredes Morales’ — where immigration agents coax an employee from their workplace by asking to question them outside — are becoming more common in Montgomery County, according to Price.

“It’s a bit like the Wild West here,” she said. “Every day there’s something new we haven’t seen before.”

Americans have a mixed view on the Trump administration’s policies.

A Pew Research Center survey taken in June found 78% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents favored the president’s approach toward immigration. Just 9% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters approved.

The administration has stripped deportation protections from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants — a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in May — and was found to have deported hundreds of Venezuelans to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador despite most of those deportees not having U.S. criminal convictions.

“Just ’cause you’re from Venezuela, they associate you with a gang,” Souza said.

Following his arrest, Paredes Morales was transported from King of Prussia to Philadelphia’s Federal Detention Center, where he has been able to speak with Souza over the phone.

Paredes Morales expects to be transferred to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, the largest ICE detention center in the Northeast and about a four-hour drive from Norristown, according to Souza.

The distance is not her only concern. Difficult conditions at the facility were recently condemned by immigration justice advocates.

Former Moshannon inmates have complained of issues accessing medical and mental healthcare at the facility as well as mistreatment by staff and the use of racial and derogatory slurs, according to a 2024 report by the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic at Temple University.

Only weeks ago Paredes Morales was encouraging Souza, a Ursinus College graduate, to pursue her dream of becoming a painter.

Now, instead of planning their wedding, Souza has embarked on a process that the families and partners of migrants fear most.

In addition to enlisting Price to handle Paredes Morales’ case, Souza has started a GoFundMe effort to raise money for legal fees. The fundraiser had raised more than $6,700 out of an $8,000 goal as of Friday.

“Andres deserves to be home, not behind bars,” Souza wrote on the page. “He deserves justice, and I need him back. We need each other.”