A 75-year-old Texas Republican who spent a lifetime voting for the GOP choked up as he declared he now regrets backing President Donald Trump after ICE agents hauled his fiancée off to a detention cell at a Houston airport.
John Gannon, a businessman who owns more than 1,000 U.S. billboards, told BREAKING NEWS that eight plainclothes agents surrounded 45-year-old Yasmin Suarez Reyes as the couple headed to a Las Vegas convention on July 24, then took her away without explanation. Weeks later, she remains held at a Texas processing center.
By her attorney’s account, Suarez Reyes did everything the law asked. A Venezuelan-born Spanish citizen, she entered legally under the Visa Waiver Program in 2023, filed for asylum before her stay lapsed, and holds a work permit and a Texas driver’s license with no criminal record. Her case remains pending — but because her original entry permission expired, ICE moved to deport her anyway. Her lawyer, Anne Kennedy, is also a lifelong Republican.
Gannon said he feels “totally betrayed.” His disillusionment lands as ICE pushes arrests at airports, a tactic that helped drive detentions to a second-term monthly high in July. He joins a growing chorus of Trump voters — from a deep-red Georgia town to Latino business owners — souring on the crackdown they once cheered.
When the reporter noted Gannon cast a ballot for Trump, the businessman expressed deep regret.
“Yeah. I wouldn’t do that again. Not after this fiasco,” he said. “This is like the Gestapo.”
“Go after the criminals. We’re all for that,” Gannon moaned. “But leave the mom and pops and the kids alone. Man, he’s destroying families.”
Asked what he’d say to Trump, he wondered aloud what the president was doing. Then his voice broke. “Yasmin’s good as gold,” he protested.
Texas businessman John Gannon says he feels “totally betrayed” after his Venezuelan fiancée, Yasmin Suarez Reyes, was detained by ICE at Houston’s international airport. A lifelong Republican who says he voted for President Trump, Gannon told BREAKING NEWS’ @camiloreports he now… pic.twitter.com/7dDvGH1TrM — BREAKING NEWS (@CBSNews) August 6, 2026