Border Patrol arrested a Detroit student on a field trip. He now faces deportation.
Border Patrol agents recently detained a Detroit high school student on his way to a field trip in a Downriver park after he was pulled over by local police.
The 18-year-old immigrant from Colombia is now in jail and faces deportation because he was living in the U.S. illegally and already had a removal order from a judge, federal officials said.
On the afternoon of May 20, the student was driving in a car with other students from Western International High School when he was pulled over by Rockwood police, according to a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). A federal official said the student was pulled over by police for a traffic stop; two officials with the Detroit Public Schools Community District said the student was accused of tailgating a Rockwood police car. He and three other students with him in the car were on Huron River Drive on their way to Lake Erie Metropark in Brownstown Township, where a field trip was taking place, when police pulled them over about a mile from the park.
CBP has a station in Gibraltar with agents that's about a 5-minute drive north of the area where the students were pulled over.
Police discovered the driver had no driver's license, then contacted Border Patrol, a federal official said. A Detroit schools teacher said police told her they contacted Border Patrol because they couldn't understand Spanish. The teacher said some of the students told her the police contacted Border Patrol after the student said he was from Colombia.
"An illegal alien with a final deportation order was arrested while driving high school students on a field trip near Rockwood, Michigan," a spokesman for CBP told the Free Press in a May 22 statement. "Rockwood Police pulled over the vehicle and found the driver had no license — only a City of Detroit ID. Border Patrol confirmed he was in the country illegally, having ignored a judge's removal order and lost his appeal."
All four of the car's passengers "were students from Western International High School" in Detroit, the CBP spokesman said.
"The driver was the only one without legal status and is currently in" the custody of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), which is part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the spokesman added.
The school officials said the student is currently jailed at Chippewa County Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula, which is a five-hour drive north of Detroit. The student has lived in the U.S. for about a year and a half, and currently lives in Detroit, a school official said.
Chrystal Wilson, a spokesperson for DPSCD, didn't comment on the arrest and didn't offer details on how the district supervises immigrant students on trips outside the school. A teacher who was on the field trip said "these were students who didn't have permission to go, and who drove separately without permission in an attempt to meet up with the field trip." The trip at Lake Erie Metropark included canoeing and speaking with naturalists about the park.
Another federal official with CBP gave more details on what happened. Agents assigned to Border Patrol's Gibraltar Station were initially contacted by local police to assist on a traffic stop for a man identified as someone operating a motor vehicle without a driver's license with passengers who were minors, the official said.
"Agents were able to identify the man, determined he was an illegal alien and took him into custody," the official said. "Further investigation revealed that the Colombian man had already been ordered deported by an immigration judge."
The student was then turned over to ICE.
A resource coordinator for the Detroit school district who often works with schools in southwest Detroit said that after the student was arrested, she was called by some teachers to help the students. She said she followed the Border Patrol car the student was put in as it drove from the scene of the arrest in Rockwood to their station in Gibraltar. She waited in the lobby for three to four hours.
More: Taylor Police Department is first agency in metro Detroit to sign agreement with ICE
The school official said the students were called "bag" and "baggage" by a Border Patrol agent, which she said were dehumanizing terms. A video she recorded of her interaction with a Border Patrol agent shows the agent replying: "That's the process and pathway we take. ... This individual has already been issued a final order of approval." Another video shows her asking Border Patrol if they would give the student a note she wrote with an attorney's name, the attorney's phone number, her number and that she would be contacting his family.
"I'll be here until I hear he's gotten the note," she said.
A person who appeared to be with Border Patrol replied that "we have people that speak Spanish here at the station." The Border Patrol official is also heard on the video telling the school official: "This is our building. ... When we tell you you have to leave, you have to leave." The school official said she eventually left at 4 p.m., the building's closing time.
The two school officials questioned why local police had to call Border Patrol for a traffic violation. Immigrant advocates have criticized police departments working with federal immigration agents. Last month in April, Taylor police became the first department in metro Detroit to enter into an agreement with ICE. Even without such agreements, local police this year have been contacting Border Patrol or ICE after detaining people suspected of being immigrants, a practice advocates said often leads to profiling of groups such as Latinos.
Contact Niraj Warikoo: nwarikoo@freepress.com or X @nwarikoo
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Border Patrol detains Detroit high school student on field trip
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