Kasper Juul Eriksen, now 32, left his home in Aalborg, Denmark, as a teenager in 2009 and spent a year in the U.S. as a high school exchange student in Starkville, Mississippi.

He and a local teenager, Savannah Hobart, fell in love. After he returned to Denmark’s fourth-largest city, he and Savannah maintained their relationship for four years, across an ocean and seven time zones.

Kasper immigrated to the U.S. in 2013 and got work as a welder – a job he has held steadily since then. He and Savannah married in 2014 and settled outside Starkville in the tiny town of Sturgis, soon starting a family.

For years, Kasper went through the process of trying to become a U.S. citizen, and Savannah Eriksen – now homeschooling their children and pregnant with their fifth baby, due in August – said her husband’s move toward citizenship appeared to be on track. He received notice last September that his naturalization application was being reviewed, and records from the U.S. government raised no questions about his paperwork, Savannah said.

Savannah told Mississippi Today that her husband’s “move toward citizenship appeared to be on track” with no red flags from ICE. The Daily Beast could not find any criminal record for Eriksen, including speeding tickets, which have been used as justification to arrest and deport some immigrants and visa holders since President Donald Trump’s inauguration. She declined an interview with the Daily Beast but shared photos of her and Eriksen.