'Can't imagine what I'm feeling': Mom, coach speak out after 19-year-old detained by ICE
A recent high school graduate and soccer standout's future is now up in the air after he was detained by immigration agents.
Emerson Colindres, a Honduran immigrant, was arrested June 4 during a check-in at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office in Blue Ash. The 19-year-old is now being held at the Butler County Jail on an ICE hold.
His mother, Ada Bell Baquedano-Amador, is worried that he could be sent to a country he barely knows anything about.
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"You can't imagine what I'm feeling," she said. "How is my son going to make it over there (Honduras)? He doesn't know anything and the country where we come from is very insecure ... It's not just."
Colindres and his family, which includes his now-16-year-old sister, came to the U.S. to seek asylum in 2014, when he was just 8 years old.
Since that time, Baquedano-Amador said they were enrolled in the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, which, according to ICE's website, is an alternative to detention and requires subjects to fulfill routine check-ins and court appearances.
"ISAP is not classified as detention; it is release with enhanced supervision," the website says. "ICE does not have the resources to monitor all nondetained cases and cannot always execute or confirm removals for those not in custody."
Colindres went to the June 4 check-in because he was told to get an ankle monitor, but just a few minutes into the meeting with immigration officials, three ICE agents came to detain him, Baquedano-Amador said. She added that she's at least been able to talk to him a few times since he's been detained.
While not a citizen, Colindres was like any other teen in the community, his mother said, describing her son as a "good kid," friendly and someone who never got into trouble.
"He's never done anything to anybody, he hasn't committed any type of crime and he's always done things the right way," Baquedano-Amador said.
Colindres graduated from a Cincinnati high school – which has requested not to be identified − last month and was one of the school's top players on the soccer team.
Additionally, he has become an integral part of the local Cincy Galaxy soccer club, and his teammates have been reeling since the news of his arrest.
Bryan Williams, who coaches the team, said he was there when Colindres was taken into custody by ICE agents. As he was being taken into custody, Colindres was "upset, scared (and) confused," Williams said. His teammates shared a similar reaction.
"They don't understand why someone who hasn't done anything is in jail, simply for being born in a different country," Williams said.
Federal court records show Baquedano-Amador applied for asylum after arriving in the U.S., saying that she was robbed and extorted by gang members after her husband left Honduras in 2011.
Although Baquedano-Amador tried on at least two occasions to report the gang's activities to police, she said those reports did not result in any criminal investigations.
She testified that she left Honduras with her children because "she did not have any more funds to pay the gang members," the court records state. She was also afraid of returning to her home country because "the gang members might think that she has money and because she would not have anyone to protect her."
After finding that Baquedano-Amador failed to show she was eligible for asylum, an immigration judge denied her application and ordered that she and her children be sent back to Honduras.
Baquedano-Amador challenged the immigration judge's decision before the Board of Immigration Appeals. She also sought a review of the case by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; however, both of those legal actions were unsuccessful.
In a February 2024 ruling, a panel of three circuit judges wrote that evidence specific to Baquedano-Amador's case, as well as evidence of the conditions in Honduras, "does not compel the conclusion that the Honduran government is unable or unwilling to control gangs that she fears."
Now in the wake of her son's arrest, Baquedano-Amador said that she also has been instructed to leave the country within the next 30 days.
ICE has yet to respond to a message from The Enquirer seeking comment on why the agency chose to detain Colindres. Williams, the soccer coach, said immigration officials previously allowed Colindres to be in the community without an ankle monitor so he could attend graduation and a soccer tournament.
In a statement to ABC News, which recently reported on undocumented immigrants being arrested during routine check-ins, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said ISAP "exists to ensure compliance with release conditions. All illegal aliens are afforded due process."
"Those arrested had executable final orders of removal by an immigration judge and had not complied with that order. If you are in the country illegally and a judge has ordered you to be removed, that is precisely what will happen," the statement reads.
In the 10 years that Williams coached Colindres on Cincy Galaxy, he said he learned a lot about the family's situation during car rides from Colindres' West Side home to soccer practice in Butler County.
Colindres has supported his teammates by going to their high school graduations and even consoled their parents when they were injured on the field, Williams said.
"He's usually the best soccer player on the team, or on the field when he's out there," Williams added. "He's an even better person."
Williams and fellow teammates are advocating for Colindres to stay in the country, or at least be released from jail, so he can spend his final days in the U.S. with friends and family.
"That's our main focus is getting him out of jail," Williams said.
According to a post on social media, a demonstration is scheduled to take place at the Butler County Jail at 6 p.m. on Sunday, June 8, to protest the detention of immigrants at the jail.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati high school grad faces deportation after ICE arrest
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