A fraternity house is missing a brother on the Washington and Lee University campus this fall. He was a rising sophomore on a full-ride scholarship. Friends describe him as a brilliant student who, when he didn’t have his head down studying, loved to play volleyball, listen to Latin music and hang out with his friends.
His room at the Lambda Chi Alpha house on Nelson Street was waiting for him, as were his fraternity brothers and a wide circle of friends.
But Luis Olarte-Gosling, 19, never made it to campus. Instead, he is awaiting a bond hearing while incarcerated in a sweltering Florida prison.
It’s been more than a month since Olarte- Gosling and his father, Luis Felipe Olarte-Lugo, were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on their way from Orlando to Lexington.
Olarte-Gosling and his family are Venezuelan asylum seekers on temporary protected status (TPS) who came to the United States legally in 2018, according to a GoFundMe set up by the family to help with legal expenses. Olarte-Gosling’s mother, Anais Gosling, wrote on GoFundMe that the father and son had chosen to drive to Virginia rather than risk flying amidst increasingly harsh and changing immigration policies.
ICE confirmed in a statement to The News-Gazette last month that Olarte-Gosling and his father were both arrested during a traffic stop on I-95 in St. John’s County in the northeast corner of Florida on Sept 2. As of press time, both Olarte-Gosling and Olarte-Lugo are listed as inmates of the Baker County Detention Center in ICE’s detainee locator system.
Last week, The News-Gazette spoke with Olarte-Gosling’s partner, Luis Mindiola, who said that as far as the family knew, they were current with their documentation and that they were pulled over seemingly at random.
“Their next court hearing wasn’t until next year. Every paper was in order,” Mindiola said. “They pulled them over for no reason. It doesn’t show that they were arrested or anything.”
The family has retained an immigration attorney, Tomas Makedomski, who said a bail hearing could come as early as this week. But even if Olarte-Gosling and his father make bail, the family will still have to face a judge over their immigration case.
Mindiola said that for now, Olarte-Gosling is trying to remain optimistic. “He is hanging in there,” Mindiola said. “He is going through it but having a lot of faith in the process and the attorney that everything will be resolved soon.”
Fleeing Persecution
Mindiola told The News-Gazette that nearly 10 years ago, Olarte-Gosling’s family was active with the opposition party against ousted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, and they fled to the United States to seek asylum.
“It wasn’t a decision that came in lightly, because they were being persecuted in Venezuela,” Mindiola said. “Luis knew the sacrifice that his parents had made to come here, and what they were running from.”
Mindiola said that since then, Olarte-Gosling’s whole goal has been to succeed academically. He earned an associate’s degree while he was still in high school in Orlando and then won a full-ride scholarship to W&L through Quest-Bridge, which provides college funding for high-achieving students from low-income families.
“He has worked really, really hard to get to where he is right now,” Mindiola said. “He’s very resilient. He gets what he wants. He doesn’t stop.”
But Olarte-Gosling’s dream of studying at W&L has now been put on hold against his will.
According to the statement from ICE, the family was authorized to remain in the U.S. until March 26, 2019, after which they violated immigration law by not adjusting their immigration status.
“Temporary Protected Status is exactly that — temporary. For too long, TPS has been allowed to function as a de facto amnesty program despite Congress never intending it to be permanent,” ICE wrote in the statement to The News-Gazette last month.
The Trump administration ended TPS for Venezuelans in the U.S. as of October of last year. However, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, documentation for Venezuelans with work permits remained valid until Oct. 2, 2026.
According to Mindiola, Luis’s father had employment authorization and worked in construction. But in the statement ICE sent to The News-Gazette, officers wrote: “Employment authorizations do NOT confer any type of l egal s tatus i n t he U nited States. All illegal aliens receive due process. We are applying the law as written by Congress. If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period.”
Makedomski, the family’s lawyer, is confident that he will be able to get his client out of the detention center because he has a clean record, but what happens after that will have to be settled in court.
“You still have to deal with the (asylum case) then,” Makedomski said. “But I always tell the clients, let’s get them out first.”
Mindiola said that despite everything he and his family have been through, Olarte-Gosling maintains a positive attitude.
“He’s a very passionate and kind person,” Mindiola said. “Everybody that you could talk to could tell you that he is like sunshine. He is a light, and he brings happiness and is very joyful and funny.”
Worries Back On Campus While Olarte-Gosling waits for a bond hearing, friends and advocates at W&L, including his fraternity brothers a Lambda Chi Alpha, have been desperately trying to figure out what they can do to help.
Several have shared the GoFundMe page, which has raised more than $40,000 to help with the family’s legal expenses.
One of those who shared the crowdfunding page was alumnus Christopher Smith.
“Getting to spend my last year at college with Luis is something I will be forever grateful for,” Smith wrote on Facebook with a link to the GoFundMe. “He is not here illegally. He is not a criminal. He is a student who wants nothing but a better life in a country that used to promise opportunity for everyone.”
Smith told The News-Gazette that at W&L’s recent Young Alumni Weekend, all he and his friends and brothers could talk about is how upset they are about what happened to someone so close to them.
“We are devastated. We are angry,” Smith said. “There are a lot of international students at W&L, especially within my fraternity, and you never want it to happen to someone close to you. You always think it’s far away -- and then one of your best friends gets taken, and it’s just a whole different type of hurt.”
Smith said Olarte-Gosling was open about his immigration status and often talked about how hard his parents had worked to get the family to America so that they could have a better life. He didn’t seem to be too afraid of ICE.
“He wasn’t scared about it because he had his papers,” Smith said. “He was here legally. And look where that got him.”
Smith said he hasn’t heard much from the university on how or if they are trying to help, although he has heard that W&L officials have sent good conduct letters on Olarte- Gosling’s behalf.
For Smith, that isn’t enough. “I kind of want to give the school the benefit of the doubt, but it’s also just extremely frustrating knowing that we have billions upon billions of dollars at our disposal,” Smith said. “We’re one of the richest schools in the nation, and we can’t, or we don’t, do anything to help a student that’s at risk.”
W&L acknowledged in a statement to The News-Gazette last month that university administrators are aware of the situation and concerned for Olarte-Gosling and his family, but said they can’t release any more details because of student privacy laws. A university spokesperson said again this week that they still cannot release any details about the case.
Mindiola said the family has spoken to a law professor on campus, who referred them to the W&L Immigration Rights Clinic for free legal advice. They have also arranged for Olarte-Gosling to take a leave of absence this semester.
“We hope he can get back his feet next semester and come back stronger,” Mindiola said.
‘Help Good People Stay’ Another person firmly in Olarte-Gosling’s corner is Kerry Scott, who has been the president of the House Corporation for the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity (a volunteer position) at W&L for more than 30 years. Scott’s job, he said, is to be “the adult in the room” for the fraternity, helping to manage the grounds and finances and keep the frat running smoothly.
Scott is a self-proclaimed conservative and said he mostly considers himself aligned with President Trump’s policies. But when he heard that one of the Lambda Chi Alpha brothers had been detained by ICE, something didn’t sit right. Although he recalls meeting Olarte-Gosling only briefly last year, Scott, a Lambda himself (class of ’76), said he can vouch for all the members of W&L’s Lambda Chi Alpha chapter almost unequivocally.
“They’re good kids, you know?” Scott said. “We expect them to be persons of good character. We (W&L) take our honor code as seriously as any institution in the world takes it. A Washington and Lee student will not lie, cheat, or steal nor tolerate those that do.”
After learning of Olarte-Gosling’s plight, Scott quickly tracked down Mindiola and personally connected him with The News-Gazette to help raise awareness about the situation.
He also said he is considering appealing directly to 6th Congressional District Rep. Ben Cline, whom he considers a friend, and Republican John McGuire, who represents his congressional district in Amherst County.
In Olarte-Gosling’s case, he said, he thinks the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration policies have gone too far.
“In addition to the opportunities to send bad people home, we should be in a position where there are opportunities to help good people stay,” Scott said. “I would like them to be going for the bad guys first, and I believe that they are generally doing that. But in the process, they’re moving so fast that they will catch people that are not in that category.”
For Olarte-Gosling’s friends on campus, the goal is simpler and more immediate than changing national immigration policies: They just want to see their friend released and back on campus.
Smith choked up at one point when he realized he was referring to Olarte-Gosling in the past tense.
“I just hope he’s safe and taken care of,” Smith said. “I just want him to come back to Lex where he deserves to be. He earned a spot at our school.”
