Thread: ICE Detains Young NKY Mother with Legal Status

ICE detains young NKY mother with legal status

Mark Curnette

Published 12:06 p.m. ET Aug. 23, 2017 | Updated 1:17 p.m. ET Aug. 23, 2017



Update 1:15 p.m.: Federal immigration police say they plan to deport a Riccy Enriquez Perdomo next week, family members say.


Enriquez has been moved to the McHenry County Jail northwest of Chicago, not far from the Wisconsin state line.


It is the final stop for detainees who are in the deportation process in that region. It is the fourth federal detention center where Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have held her.


Original story: Immigration police seized a 22-year-old Florence mother of two young children last week and are holding her for deportation despite having legal status, The Enquirer has learned.
In a case with national implications, Riccy Enriquez Perdomo, 22, of Florence, Kentucky, was arrested Thursday and has been held at four different locations since then, say her family and attorneys.
ICE would not confirm her current location or whether the agency intends to deport her.


Enriquez, the married mother of two children, ages 5 and 11 months, is a two-time recipient of legal status through the DACA program. Otherwise known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, it was created in 2012 through an executive order by President Barack Obama to provide temporary relief for young adults who had been brought illegally into the country as children.

Enriquez received a work permit through DACA and was employed at Amazon in Hebron, Kentucky, until the birth of her infant son, Rony.


President Donald Trump said in July that he is wrestling with DACA and calls it "a decision that is very, very hard to make." Immigrant advocates say Trump's administration is recklessly disregarding DACA protections and deporting them and other undocumented immigrants who've committed no crimes in the United States.

Enriquez, a Honduran national, was 9 when she crossed the U.S.'s southern border in 2004 with an uncle and two of her sisters. She received DACA status in 2015, and her renewal was approved Jan. 31, according to Don Sherman, a local immigrant rights activist and lawyer.

She had previously been under a deportation order before receiving DACA status.


Riccy Enriquez Perdomo, 22, of Florence, Kentucky, is in federal immigration custody even though she has legal status, say family members. She is shown with her son Rony, 11 months, and daughter Melanie, 5.

Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested her Thursday, Aug. 17, in Louisville. She had gone to an immigration office there to post bond for another immigrant who was eligible for release. Enriquez went, says her family, because she was confident in her legal status.


"They asked for her information when she posted the bond and then told her she didn't have DACA," said her brother-in-law, Robert Cote, of Mount Healthy.


"We called ICE in Chicago, and the person there told us, `When Trump came in, DACA doesn't exist anymore.' I couldn't believe they told me that."


A public affairs spokeswoman at the Chicago immigration office referred The Enquirer to a "detainee" search function at www.ice.gov that was malfunctioning Wednesday morning.

"This is not the first time this year that ICE has misrepresented the situation on DACA for several immigrants around the country," Sherman said.



He said he completed and filed Enriquez's DACA forms and confirmed Tuesday with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that she has legal status under DACA.

Her case is similar to that of a 23-year-old DACA recipient in San Diego.

On Tuesday, a federal judge there said he was preparing to order the Trump administration to return Juan Manuel Montes to the United States from Mexico. U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel said he needs to hear directly from Montes. His lawyers said ICE unlawfully deported him in February. ICE officials said Montes voluntarily left the country and gave up his DACA protection.


Under the direction of the Trump administration, ICE officials have said there are "no more exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement." Despite record numbers of deportations during Obama's two terms, his administration focused removal efforts on undocumented immigrants with felonies or serious misdemeanor convictions.

Family members of Enriquez are angry with ICE because it keeps moving her and has detained her in four locations since her Thursday arrest. They took her first to the federal detention facility at the Boone County Jail in Northern Kentucky before moving her quickly to Clay County, Indiana, and then Chicago.

Her sister, Rita Cote, said Wednesday morning that ICE moved her again but is not telling her where.

"Every time we have an appointment to see her, we show up and they tell us they moved her," said Robert Cote, the U.S.-born husband of Enriquez's sister, Rita.

Rita Cote, now 32, crossed the border with her mother in 2000 and has DACA status, too. She had been detained by federal officials in 2009, when the family lived in Orlando, Florida. The sisters' mother lives in Norwood.

In all, 23 members of the extended family live in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

"Everybody is freaking out," Robert Cote said. "This family is like a litter of puppies. When one of them is missing, everyone searches frantically for it."

The family has a local attorney, Teresa Cunningham, and is working with the National Immigration Law Center office in Los Angeles, which is also representing Montes in San Diego.
Advocates and family members in Greater Cincinnati are in contact with Sen. Richard Durbin, the Illinois legislator who introduced federal legislation in 2001 known as the Dream Act. It would provide temporary legal status and a path to citizenship for young people brought into the country illegally as children, like Enriquez.


Durbin and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham introduced updated Dream Act legislation in July.
Enriquez's family also is seeking help from Ohio's senators, Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Sherrod Brown.
Reached Tuesday night at their Florence home, Enriquez's husband, Rony, said he is sad and worried that his wife will be deported. He is undocumented.

Family members describe Riccy Enriquez Perdomo as a devout Christian who holds religious services for up to 30 people in her living room.


"Of all people, this is the last person you need to fear," said Richard Cote. "She always does the right thing.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news...tus/593734001/

This article is not exactly clear, is it.

Over the years, when there is a public outcry for something to be fixed, some government people decide to sabotage it by deliberately misinterpreting the law. Sometimes they would go after the least egregious, and most sympathetic person they can find, arrest that person - making sure they have notified the media far in advance.

It would would be very naive of us to believe this won't happen in this situation - very naive to believe it hasn't already happened.

Okay, I'm confused.

She had previously been under a deportation order before receiving DACA status.

How could she be accepted into the DACA program if she was already under a deportation order?