It's being called a rally for love. On Wednesday afternoon, supporters of former Miss Hawaii Cheryl Bartlett and her husband of 16 years gathered in front of the federal building in Honolulu. Rogerio Araujo sat in the Federal Detention Center. He was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents a week ago.
While Bartlett has been able to talk to him, she has not been able to see him and is working with an immigration attorney to prevent him from being deported to Brazil. Bartlett and her husband have been featured as musical guests over the years on The Conversation and on HPR’s Brazilian Experience.
She hoped to draw attention to her plight at Wednesday’s rally.
“We're going to be there to just raise awareness about what's happening to our neighbors and friends and families in Hawaiʻi and across the United States of America, and we're going to advocate from this platform for humanity, humanitarian acts of compassion to keep our families together, and also for immigration reform, which is sadly needed, badly needed,” Bartlett said before the gathering.
She added that there is a misconception that if you marry a U.S. citizen, you are guaranteed citizenship status. She said the cases are very procedural and require you to meet all expectations of immigration law.
Additionally, glitches can happen along the way, making the process harder to overcome; Bartlett characterized theirs as clerical errors.
“I find it inhumane that the current policies dictate that they should take people like my husband and target them for removal, even though I have pleaded for grace in the past and received it from immigration courts based on our individual situation and now, because we're under the current administration with their agenda, my husband has been targeted, along with many others in his situation who have previously received grace,” she told HPR.
Bartlett said she is legally blind and has chronic kidney disease and type 1 diabetes. She told HPR that she tries her best to manage it, but her husband is always there for her.
“This is causing so much pain for people who establish their lives with their partners, they tried their best to do the right thing, and we are being categorically denied our right to pursuit of happiness in our sense of place in this state, in this country,” Bartlett said. “I just need people to know how much this hurts, how much it hurts our families and our community. Let's try harder. Let's try harder to keep our families and our communities strong. Families keep our communities strong. We should endorse humanity. We should endorse a very big concept of love. What is happening to my husband is not of love. It is of anger. It is of fear. It is possibly of hate. I must come from love.”
This story aired on The Conversation on Nov. 5, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this story for the web.
