A former contestant on Latvia's version of Dancing With The Stars was arrested by ICE in San Francisco after overstaying his visa for more than a decade, and federal officials say his criminal record includes aggravated assault with a gun and sexual battery.
Roberts Nemiro, a 43-year-old Latvian national who appeared on the Latvian dance competition Dejo ar Zvaigzni!, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on July 28 at the end of a scheduled interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. He had come to the interview with his partner, identified only as Lydia, and their immigration attorney to apply for a marriage-based green card. Instead of walking out with legal status, Nemiro was taken into custody after USCIS referred him to ICE.
The Department of Homeland Security published a press release the same week detailing Nemiro's criminal history and confirming he is now in removal proceedings. DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis did not hold back about the case.
"This illegal alien from Latvia may have once had a career as a professional dancer on TV, but has turned into a career criminal with a rap sheet that includes aggravated assault with a gun, sexual battery, and drug possession."
Bis added that ICE made the arrest despite California's status as a sanctuary state, a pointed reference to the state's longstanding policy of limiting cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.
"Despite California being a sanctuary state, ICE was able to arrest this criminal and get him off our streets, and he will soon be deported from our country."
Nemiro first entered the United States in October 2011 on a visa that expired in August 2012. He never left. For roughly fourteen years, he lived and worked in the Bay Area, listing himself on LinkedIn as a Professional Ballroom Dance Teacher and pro dancer. His immigration status during that entire stretch was unlawful.
His criminal record, as outlined in the DHS press release, goes well beyond a simple visa overstay. Nemiro was convicted of aggravated assault of a non-family member with a gun. He also accumulated arrests for battery, sexual battery, and drug-related offenses. The DHS release did not specify the dates or jurisdictions of those charges, but the federal government's characterization of his record was unambiguous: he was a public safety concern.
Fox News reported that the arrest was part of the Trump administration's broader immigration enforcement push, which has placed particular emphasis on detaining illegal immigrants with violent criminal histories, even in jurisdictions that resist federal cooperation.
That enforcement posture has drawn fierce opposition from progressive officials in cities like New York, where Mayor Mamdani used Independence Day to defend illegal immigrants even as ICE arrested convicted criminals. But cases like Nemiro's illustrate why the federal government views sanctuary policies as obstacles to public safety rather than humanitarian gestures.
The day after Nemiro was moved to an ICE detention facility in Bakersfield, California, his partner Lydia created a GoFundMe page titled "Support Robert & Lydia's Immigration Legal Fight." She set a goal of $40,000 to cover legal expenses. By the time the story broke publicly, the campaign had nearly reached that target.
Lydia's account of events painted a starkly different picture from the DHS press release. She wrote that she and Nemiro had attended their scheduled USCIS interview on July 28 for his marriage-based green card application, a process she described as following the legal path.
"We have worked hard to do everything we could the right way, and we never imagined that attending a required immigration interview would end with our family being separated."
She described the recent days as "overwhelming" and "the hardest of our lives," and said their immigration attorneys were working "urgently to pursue every available legal avenue to secure his release." She also acknowledged that even if Nemiro is released from detention, "our legal journey will be far from over."
The GoFundMe appeal asked supporters to contribute toward Nemiro's legal costs or, failing that, to share the family's story. What it did not address was Nemiro's criminal record, the aggravated assault conviction, the sexual battery arrest, the drug charges. The fundraising page framed the case entirely as a family separated by an immigration system gone wrong.
California's sanctuary laws have been a flashpoint in the national immigration debate for years. The state limits how much local and state law enforcement can assist federal immigration agents, a policy that critics say shields criminals from deportation. In Nemiro's case, ICE did not need local cooperation. The agency arrested him at a federal immigration office, during a federal interview, after a referral from another federal agency.
Bis highlighted that distinction in her statement, noting that ICE succeeded in making the arrest despite California's posture. The New York Post reported that Nemiro's criminal record included not only the aggravated assault conviction but also a conviction for disorderly conduct, in addition to the battery, sexual battery, and drug possession arrests.
The political friction over sanctuary jurisdictions continues to escalate. In New Jersey, police arrested protesters who blocked an ICE detention center in Newark earlier this year. And progressive leaders have gone further than mere noncooperation: New York's mayor has called for abolishing ICE entirely, declaring the agency beyond reform.
Against that backdrop, cases like Nemiro's give federal officials a straightforward argument. A man who overstayed his visa by more than a decade, who was convicted of a violent felony involving a firearm, who was arrested for sexual battery and drug offenses, and who was still living freely in a major American city, walked into a federal building for a green card interview and was finally detained.
The question sanctuary-state advocates have yet to answer is simple: if not this man, then who? Nemiro was not picked up in a workplace sweep or a neighborhood dragnet. He showed up voluntarily at a government office. USCIS looked at his file and referred him to ICE. The system, for once, worked the way it was supposed to.
Meanwhile, the legal obstruction of immigration enforcement continues in other jurisdictions. A former Wisconsin judge faces prison for helping an illegal immigrant dodge an ICE arrest, a case that underscores how far some officials will go to prevent federal agents from doing their jobs.
Bis closed her statement with a line that doubled as a verdict on Nemiro's years in the country: "ICE is bringing the curtain down on his illegal stay and crime spree here in the U.S."
Nemiro is currently in removal proceedings. No hearing date has been publicly disclosed. His attorneys are pursuing unspecified legal avenues to secure his release from the Bakersfield facility. The GoFundMe donors, nearly $40,000 worth, are betting on a sympathetic outcome.
But the facts of the case make that sympathy hard to justify. Nemiro entered the country legally, overstayed his visa by more than thirteen years, and accumulated a criminal record that includes a gun-related assault conviction. He was not a victim of bureaucratic error or a dreamer caught in legal limbo. He was an illegal immigrant with a violent past who managed to avoid consequences for over a decade, until he walked into the one building where the federal government was paying attention.
When the system finally catches up to someone like that, the correct response is not outrage. It is relief.
