Delayed by pandemic, Mount Prospect woman now home after three-year deportation to the Philippines

On a recent Sunday morning, Edgardo Bartolome stood in the pulpit at Filipino Immanuel Baptist Church of Chicago on the Northwest Side. The 68-year-old pastor began singing an old worship song:

"In his time, in his time. He makes all things beautiful in his time."

As he sang, his 69-year-old wife Julita Bartolome, who in 2019 was deported to her native Philippines after more than 30 years in the United States, emerged from a door behind the pulpit. She was to join him in a duet of the song, but the plan was derailed when members of the congregation began to cry and rush the pulpit to hug her.

Aaron Bartolome was at a different church that morning but later saw a video recording and said: "It was a nice reunion for the people at the church. They really missed her."

In 2019, WBEZ first reported that Julita Bartolome was deported during a wave of immigration crackdowns by the Trump administration.

More than three years later, she's back home in Mount Prospect - for good this time, according to Katherine Del Rosario, the family's lawyer.

• For the full report, go to wbez.org.