Louisiana mom went for routine ICE check - now she is in detention over 100 miles away
Wendy Brito, an asylum-seeker from El Salvador and New Orleans-area mother of three, never returned from a regular check-in last month with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Her family didn't know what happened, until Brito appeared in an ICE database, showing she was detained in Brasile, Louisiana, nearly 200 miles away.
'She calls me crying, hysterically, saying they arrested me, they took me,' Brito's partner, Kremly Marrero, told WWLTV on Wednesday.
Marrero added that Brito has been in the U.S. for 15 years, and came to America 'to get away from vicious people.'
'I just want her home,' he said of Brito, who volunteers at McDonogh 26 Elementary School. 'I need her home. If not for me, then for the kids. I can hold on, but my kids need her.'
'Because of our operational tempo with routine, daily law enforcement operations, and increased interest in all our mission sets, we aren't able to research and confirm or deny many specific cases,' ICE told the outlet in response to their reporting.
Marrero said officials told his family Brito was taken because of 'new regulations under the new administration.'
Migrants and advocates say that people are increasingly being apprehended at regular immigration check-ins.
Mohsen Mahdawi, a lawful permanent resident and Columbia University pro-Palestine activist, was arrested this week shortly after arriving for a citizenship interview inside the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service office in Vermont.
Beginning April 11, the Trump administration directed immigration judges to circumvent the normal hearing process and swiftly deny asylum applications from individuals with cases deemed 'legally deficient.'
As The Independent has reported, many of ICE's most high-profile detainees, as well as individuals involved in lesser-known cases, are held in rural Louisiana, where detainees have reported poor conditions, difficulty accessing legal counsel, and a higher-than-average rate of asylum denials.
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