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Video: INS To Review Woman's Case


Illegal Immigrant Leaves Jail
INS Says It Has Reopened Woman's Case

POSTED: 10:30 am CDT June 8, 2006
UPDATED: 11:15 am CDT June 8, 2006

DES MOINES, Iowa -- The national immigration debate has hit home for a central Iowa woman and her family.

Estephanie Izaquirre, 18, said that officials with the Immigration and Naturalization Service tricked her into being arrested last week.

Izaquirre said she entered into the United States illegally in order to escape a life of sex slavery; now she is just happy to be out of the Polk County Jail.

Last Friday, Izaquirre said that the INS told her that if she came to their office, she would get the green card she had been waiting for. Instead, she was arrested.

When Izaquirre was 12 years old, she fled her native Honduras because she said that she was forced into prostitution.

"I was, like, going crazy because I didn't know what to do. I was crying," she said.

After five days behind bars, she's now out of jail and living with her sister in Des Moines.

"(A jail official) was like, 'Oh, you are going home in 10 minutes.' I was so happy," she said.

"I was running all over the house. I was kissing my kids. The kids, they was screaming," said Reyna Jasso, Izaquirre's sister.

"I was so happy. When I saw my sister, I start(ed) to cry more and when I saw my nephew (I cried) more," she said.

Izaquirre said she owes all her thanks to Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, who showed up at a rally for her outside of the Polk County Jail. She wanted to say thank you.

"He doesn't know me. I mean, that's impressive," she said.

There is still a chance that Izaquirre will be deported, but she said the INS is reopening her case.

In the meantime, she has to check in with immigration officials every month.
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