‘Give up and go home': UF student's self-deportation highlights ICE's harsher enforcement
Felipe Zapata-Velásquez, 27, a student at the University of Florida, self-deported to his home country of Colombia after Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him following his arrest for driving with a suspended license.
Zapata-Velásquez entered the U.S. on an F-1 student visa on Feb. 12, 2023, to attend Santa Fe College, a small public college in Gainesville, according to ICE. But on October 3, 2024, after failing to enroll, his student status was terminated on SEVIS, the portal that tracks students' immigration compliance.
Experts noted to the Miami Herald that under past administrations, Zapata-Velásquez would likely have been released and placed into deportation proceedings, but not sent to an immigration facility.
Although he let his status as a student lapse and was subject to deportation, people in his position would typically not be detained, said Jesse Bless, an attorney that has specialized in immigration for two decades and worked for the Department of Justice.
'Many people who are in removal proceedings are not detained,' said Bless. 'They would only detain him to try to get him to give up and go home.'
Zapata-Velásquez was arrested in Gainesville on March 28 for driving with a suspended license and for driving a car with a license plate not assigned to that vehicle, according to court records. He was charged with a second-degree misdemeanor. According to court records, Zapata Velásquez had also been charged in 2023 with driving with a suspended license and for operating a motor home with an expired registration.
Zapata-Velásquez was booked into jail in Alachua County, a short drive from the University of Florida, where he was a third-year student majoring in Food and Resource Economics in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences department.
ICE took Zapata-Velásquez into custody after Gainesville police released him. After a stop at the Jacksonville office, he was transported to Krome Service Processing Center in Miami, a facility that has come under fire in recent weeks for overcrowding and poor conditions. The Miami Herald reported that detainees are sleeping on cement floors amid the stench of body odor and raw sewage. Paul Chavez, an attorney that spoke to the Herald, said the conditions at Krome are the worst he's seen in 20 years of being an attorney and have 'risen to the level of being an international human rights disaster.'
After nine nights in custody, six of them in ICE detention, Zapata-Velásquez opted to leave the United States for his home country of Colombia.
'The problem is the threat of detention,' said Bless, of students and other immigrants who chose to self-deport.
Read more: 'Inhumane:' Overcrowding strains Krome detention center amid Trump's immigrant crackdown
Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, reported that Zapata Velásquez told the officer who stopped him that he was in the process of filing an I-20 form, a document that certifies a student's eligibility to study here.
But despite his student status technically ending, he continued to attend classes at the University of Florida. The International Center at UF is in charge of ensuring their foreign students have the proper documentation to enroll, but did not respond to a request for comment about whether the office was aware that his legal status had ended in October.
A representative from the school declined to comment, citing privacy policies.
School officials are required to report whether an active student with a visa has enrolled within a month of classes starting. If the student fails to enroll in a full course of study in the next session the student is expected, the student's status is terminated.
Since Zapata-Velásquez's arrest, detention and self-deportation, students, and elected officials have come out to make public statements decrying his situation.
'If the university administration had cared about its international and immigrant students, it would have expanded access to immigration services for students at UF proactively, long before ICE was given the opportunity to kidnap Felipe and hold him at Krome,' said the UF Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter in a statement.
Miami Herald immigration reporter Syra Ortiz Blanes contributed to this report.
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