Utah Violinist Describes Terror of ICE Detainment
The Utah violinist who was detained for 17 days by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spoke at length on Friday about his experience at an ICE detention center in Aurora, Colorado.
Utah violinist John Shin and his wife Danae Snow Shin.
Some background about this story: John Shin, 37, entered the U.S. legally as a child and is married to a U.S. citizen, making him eligible for a green card, according to his attorney Adam Crayk.
Shin, who originally is from South Korea, entered the U.S. with his father at age 10 under a tourist visa. His father switched to a student visa, under which Shin was a dependent. Shin later received status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, until it was revoked due to a 2020 driving-while-impaired conviction, according to his lawyer.
Shin has a master’s degree in music performance from the University of Utah and has performed with the Utah Symphony and Ballet West. Shin has been married for four years to a DaNae Shin, a U.S. citizen, who helped rally their Salt Lake City community to help him, with a GoFundMe campaign as well as a benefit concert and other efforts by fellow musicians.
Due to his marital status, "John is 100 percent eligible for a green card," Crayk said on Friday. "He doesn't need a waiver, he doesn't need forgiveness, his impaired driver conviction does not block him in any way, shape or form." Shin said that they had been working toward getting him a green card, but had experience financial setbacks that led them to delay the process.
Nonetheless Shin was required to post a $25,000 bond and to wear an ankle monitor in order to be released from the Colorado detention center and return to his family in Salt Lake City.
When he was arrested on August 18, Shin had been in Colorado Springs for work; he was likely flagged because he was visiting Fort Carson Military base.
Agents from the Department of Homeland Security met him at his hotel, spoke to him for 20 minutes, and then "I was handcuffed in front of the hotel and taken into another office," he said. At that office he was further interviewed for another 3-4 hours.
"Shortly after being detained, the special agents gave me a three-minute phone call, it was a very short phone call, to my wife," Shin said. "It was one of the worst moments in my life, to hear my wife cry, on her birthday. I said 'Happy birthday, honey. I have some bad news, I'm being detained right now.' And I asked her to call our attorney."
With shackles on both his wrists and ankles, Shin was transferred 70 miles away to the Denver Detention Center in Aurora, "which was a long drive from Colorado Springs," Shin said. "It was a brutal drive, too. It was a very shocking moment for me, I never thought I would have to feel what it's like to be shackled on my ankles and wrists, feeling like some kind of a serious criminal, as if I had murdered someone."
After arriving at the detention center he spent another six hours in a cold cell with concrete walls. He was admitted to the facility around 2 a.m.
"I was absolutely terrified. I cried all day."
In his block at the detention center "there were about 70-80 people, and I was sharing a room with three other detainees. Two were from India, one was from China," he said.
They slept on thin mats (like yoga mats) over a metal frame bed. "Every day for about six days I requested a pillow," he said, but he never received one. He had one blanket that didn't quite keep out the cold - on Friday he was still recovering from the cough he developed during his time there.
In the facility the detainees wore different colored shirts - red, orange, blue or green. They didn't know what the shirts meant, but detainees speculated that red was for those who arrived illegally and had serious felony charges. Shin wore a green shirt.
Shin said he did not feel threatened by his fellow detainees, though he noted that often just one officer was there to supervise some 70-80 people.
"Interacting with any of these detainees, there was a sense of connection with all people from different nations," Shin said. "Especially the Chinese people I was able to connect with in my block. They did not commit any crime, most of them entered legally, they're wonderful people, they were so supportive. I wish that the immigration process could be easier and could be done more lawfully rather than being forced."
In his interactions with other detainees, "in about 90 percent of the stories that I heard, the ICE agent called them one day and said they needed to come into the office to verify some information and they'd love to help them," Shin said. "So they'd been lured into these locations and then when they go visit these places they get detained."
At the detention center there were eight phones for the 80 people in his cell block, and always a long line and wait to use one.
"There was not much to do. We weren't even able to go outside. The only open space was a concrete walls with a little bit of open roof on the top, that was the only outside area we were given for five hours a day," he said. There was a library with about four books.
When it came to the officers at the detention center, "the tone was more commanding than cooperative," Shin said. "There were a lot of racist jokes because most of the detainees in the block didn't speak English well, so they couldn't understand what the officers or some ICE agents were saying. But clearly, as an English speaker, I understood that some of those were very racist comments."
The uncertainty of his predicament was a constant source of anxiety. "When you are inside the detention center you have no information coming from outside," he said. "I was in constant panic. Every night I wasn't sure what was going to happen tomorrow or the following day."
"Every day somebody would be deported or somebody would be moving to a different facility, you never know what is going to happen to you when you are inside the detention center," Shin said. "They just come and go at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., grabbing you and then saying, 'It's time to go, pack your things, you only have 10 minutes.' It was terrifying, the whole process."
Three meals were provided, at 6 a.m., 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. "Usually just mostly rice and pinto beans," Shin said.
On the advice of his attorney, Shin didn't sign any of the papers he was presented with, at the facility. He said it would have been difficult to figure out what he was signing. "Their lingo was a little bit confusing to me," he said. "They don't tell you much about what you're signing - just 'Here is a document, go ahead and sign.' I wished there was a little bit more explanation about what they were requesting us to sign."
Though many of the detainees there were from Colorado, there were also ones that had been transferred from other facilities. One of the more notorious ones that the detainees were talking about was the Mississippi detention center. "If it's 80 people per block at the Aurora center, it's about 160 people per block at the Mississippi detention center," Shin said. "It's an open-roof concept - people's beds were getting wet when it was raining. Just awful stories. They were getting sick. Hygiene was not good - they were only given maybe one roll of toilet paper between four people per week. They were serving breakfast at 3 a.m. and lunch at 9 a.m. and dinner at 3 p.m. I don't know how these people are surviving over there, just awful conditions."
Shin felt despair for much of the time he was detained, but "I did not want to give up because I have my family here," he said. "I was very depressed and very emotional for the first week, until my amazing wife - she worked through things very quickly. I don't know how she did it. I'm still shocked to be back out here. I'm go grateful. Thank you to Adam and John for accepting this case."
Shin met his wife Danae Snow in middle school, at an after-school orchestra program. At the time, he was too shy to ask her out, but they kept running into each other, in college, and at orchestra gigs. Finally after one concert, he asked her out to dinner. They were married in 2021 at a courthouse, then had a celebratory wedding in 2022. Shin has two stepchildren.
"I did not see this coming. It was always in the process, we were working toward our green card, unfortunately it happened suddenly one day that I was detained," Shin said. "I consider myself an American. This is my home. I have no home to go back to. I went to elementary School, middle school, high school and college here; all of the friends and families I know, they live in Utah. I was born in Korea and I do cherish that part of the culture. I am hard working and loving husband and father. I am a proud person....For my entire life, living in the United States, I always thought I was an American. This is where all my memories are."
You can watch the full press conference with Shin, his wife and his attorney here:
You might also like:
* * *
Enjoying Violinist.com? Click here to sign up for our free, bi-weekly email newsletter. And if you've already signed up, please invite your friends! Thank you.
Replies
Thank you.
I can't begin to imagine how horrible this experience is for Mr. Shin. I hope he can get his green card situation finalized and work towards citizenship, if that now is the next logical step given his situation.
This is not the America I grew up in. We are drifting into shameful and frightening territory. Mr. Shin is one of the many people who made America great. Mr. Trump and his party have gone radically Anti-American.
Will, it IS kind of the America you grew up in, even if you've had such a cloistered existence that you didn't realize it.
You must be registered and logged in to submit a comment.
Violinist.com is made possible by...
Dimitri Musafia, Master Maker of Violin and Viola Cases
Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition
Johnson String Instrument/Carriage House Violins
Subscribe
Laurie's Books
Discover the best of Violinist.com in these collections of editor Laurie Niles' exclusive interviews.
Violinist.com Interviews Volume 1, with introduction by Hilary Hahn
Violinist.com Interviews Volume 2, with introduction by Rachel Barton Pine
September 9, 2025 at 06:16 PM · Thank you. A compelling narrative of what is apparently not only acceptable, but supported by many in the new reality of our country.