NOVEMBER 14, 2016 6:19 AM

One of NC6 immigrant teens from Charlotte deported to Central America



Moises Salmeron with a picture of his nephew Pedro Arturo Salmeron 18, during a prayer protest at the Department of Homeland Security to plead for his release on Feb. 29, 2016.

Robert Lahser rlahser@charlotteobserver.com

BY MARK PRICE
msprice@charlotteobserver.com

A Charlotte teen who claims he fled El Salvador to avoid being killed by drug gangs has been deported back to his home country by the Obama administration.

The teen, Pedro Salmeron, was among six North Carolina immigrant teens from Central America who were arrested after coming to the country seeking asylum. They were called the NC6by immigrant advocates. Two of the six were arrested in Charlotte.

U.S immigration officials confirmed Salmeron was removed Saturday “after receiving full due process.”
Salmeron had been held for about 10 months in a Georgia detention center while appeals were filed on his behalf.

“His removal took place in accordance with a final order of removal issued by a federal immigration judge, and after multiple appeals filed on his behalf were rejected by the courts,” said Bryan Cox, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the southern region.

The other Charlotte teen among the NC6, Yefri Sorto-Hernandez, was released from federal custody on $30,000 bond in June. He is awaiting the outcome of a bid to stay legally in the country. Sorto-Hernandez was on his way to class at West Mecklenburg High when arrested this year by immigration agents.

Yefri Sorto-Hernandez and Pedro Arturo Salmeron were minors when they crossed the border from Mexico into Texas in 2014.

They were part of a flood of Central American minors who showed up without parents at the U.S. border between 2009 and 2014. Most said they were escaping violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, countries that have some of the world’s highest murder rates. They were willing to make the dangerous journey based on word-of-mouth knowledge of a Bush-era law that requires unaccompanied children from Central America to be given immigration court consideration and possible asylum.

Advocates for such teens have criticized the Obama administration for setting records in the numbers of people it has deported, including teens like Salmeron.

Pew Research Center studies show the administration deported more unauthorized immigrants during its first six years than the Republican George W. Bush administration did over its full eight.

A total 2.4 million were deported under the administration from fiscal 2009 to 2014, including a record 435,000 in 2013, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the data.

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