logo
High school graduate facing ICE deportation weeks after earning his diploma: ‘I was just living my life'

High school graduate facing ICE deportation weeks after earning his diploma: ‘I was just living my life'

Independent5 days ago

An Ohio high school graduate is facing deportation to Honduras by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) just weeks after earning his diploma.
Emerson Colindres, 19, arrived in the United States with his family as an eight-year-old in 2014 but was detained during a routine check-in at an ICE facility in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash on Wednesday June 4, according to members of the community who have begun campaigning for his release.
The Colindres family had sought asylum in the U.S., requesting protection from extortion by Honduran criminal gangs, only for their case to be rejected, their appeal denied and a final removal order issued in 2023.
Since then, they have participated in ICE's Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP, a parole-like alternative to incarceration) without ever being overtly ordered to leave the country.
Bryan Williams, the teen's soccer coach at local team Cincy Galaxy, told a local affiliate of ABC News that the three ICE agents who picked Colindres up had clearly been waiting for him.
'They informed us that they were detaining and deporting Emerson only,' he said. 'No explanation was given.'
'Emerson's one of the best kids I've ever met,' Williams continued. 'We don't know what we can do, but we're doing whatever we can.'
Explaining the rationale behind the detention of the recent graduate from Gilbert A Dater High School, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement: '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 DHS also noted that ISAP 'exists to ensure compliance with release conditions.'
On Sunday, Colindres's teammates gathered outside the Butler County Jail in Hamilton where he is being held wearing 'Free Emerson' T-shirts and spoke to him by phone for 20 minutes.
'I was just... living life, minding my own business,' Colindres told a local journalist on the same call. 'And now I'm here.'
On the conditions in which he is being kept, he said: 'It's just awful. We only go out once a day – sometimes twice. [It's] not a life someone who didn't do anything should be living.'
Teammate Joshua Williams appealed for his friend's release saying: 'He didn't do anything wrong. And they just took him away.
'I was the last person who saw him, I got to hug him goodbye. I wish I hugged him longer. Because I didn't know that would be the last time I was going to see him.'
Preston Robinson, another teammate, said: 'It's not like he had a say in whether he could or couldn't come.
'I just wanted to be here to show that I support him. Support anybody that's going through this, because it's just not fair.'
Shortly afterwards, at the same protest event, Ada Bell Baquedano-Amador, Colindres's mother, addressed President Donald Trump, whose administration is now enforcing its long-threatened illegal immigration crackdown with increasing aggression.
'Please, Mr Trump – because I'm talking directly to you – have pity on us,' she said in Spanish. 'Have compassion.'
Baquedano-Amador has since told The Cincinnati Enquirer that she too has been given 30 days to self-deport to Honduras in the wake of her son's arrest.
'You can't imagine what I'm feeling,' she said. 'How is my son going to make it over there? He doesn't know anything and the country where we come from is very insecure... It's not just.'

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump curbs immigration enforcement at farms, meatpacking plants, hotels and restaurants
Trump curbs immigration enforcement at farms, meatpacking plants, hotels and restaurants

The Independent

time4 hours ago

  • The Independent

Trump curbs immigration enforcement at farms, meatpacking plants, hotels and restaurants

The Trump administration directed immigration officers to pause arrests at farms, restaurants and hotels, after President Donald Trump expressed alarm about the impact of aggressive enforcement, an official said Saturday. The move follows weeks of increased enforcement since Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and main architect of Trump's immigration policies, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would target at least 3,000 arrests a day, up from about 650 a day during the first five months of Trump's second term. Tatum King, an official with ICE's Homeland Security Investigations unit, wrote regional leaders on Thursday to halt investigations of the agricultural industry, including meatpackers, restaurants and hotels, according to The New York Times. A U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed to The Associated Press the contents of the directive. The Homeland Security Department did not dispute it. 'We will follow the President's direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America's streets,' Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokesperson, said when asked to confirm the directive. The shift suggests Trump's promise of mass deportations has limits if it threatens industries that rely on workers in the country illegally. Trump posted on his Truth Social site Thursday that he disapproved of how farmers and hotels were being affected. 'Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,' he wrote. 'In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!' While ICE's presence in Los Angeles has captured public attention and prompted Trump to deploy the California National Guard and Marines, immigration authorities have also been a growing presence at farms and factories across the country. Farm bureaus in California say raids at packinghouses and fields are threatening businesses that supply much of the country's food. Dozens of farmworkers were arrested after uniformed agents fanned out on farms northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County, which is known for growing strawberries, lemons and avocados. Others are skipping work as fear spreads. ICE made more than 70 arrests Tuesday at a food packaging company in Omaha, Nebraska. The owner of Glenn Valley Foods said the company was enrolled in a voluntary program to verify workers' immigration status and that it was operating at 30% capacity as it scrambled to find replacements. Tom Homan, the White House border czar, has repeatedly said ICE will send officers into communities and workplaces, particularly in 'sanctuary' jurisdictions that limit the agency's access to local jails. Sanctuary cities 'will get exactly what they don't want, more officers in the communities and more officers at the work sites,' Homan said Monday on Fox News Channel. 'We can't arrest them in the jail, we'll arrest them in the community. If we can't arrest them in community, we're going to increase work site enforcement operation. We're going to flood the zone.' ___

Report: Trump's U-turn on mass deportations
Report: Trump's U-turn on mass deportations

Daily Mail​

time4 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

Report: Trump's U-turn on mass deportations

By Published: Updated: The Trump administration has for the first time pumped the brakes on its mass deportation agenda, telling ICE officials to pause raids on farms, hotels and restaurants, according to an internal email and three US officials familiar with the situation. The decision, as reported by The New York Times , comes after Trump made a rare acknowledgement that some of the deportations he's ordered has hurt industries in agricultural, hospitality and food sectors. 'Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,' he said in a Truth Social post on Thursday morning. 'We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!' he added. He further elaborated on these sentiments in a press conference later that same day. 'Our farmers are being hurt badly by, you know, they have very good workers, they have worked for them for 20 years,' he said. 'They're not citizens, but they've turned out to be, you know, great. And we're going to have to do something about that. We can't take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don't have maybe what they're supposed to have, maybe not,' he continued, adding that there would be an 'order' soon. The official order from Trump came on Thursday via an email sent by a senior ICE official, Tatum King, to regional leaders of the ICE department that generally carries out criminal investigations. These investigations often lead to worksite raids, which have been happening in increasing frequency all over the country. These raids have led to nationwide anti-ICE protests, most notably in Los Angeles, where demonstrations have been going on for a week straight. 'Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels,' King wrote in his message. King clarified that investigations 'human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling into these industries are OK.' The order instructed agents not to arrest 'noncriminal collaterals,' a seeming reference to illegal immigrants who have not committed any additional crimes. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the new guidance and said it would follow it. 'We will follow the president's direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America's streets,' Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokeswoman, said in a statement. This marks a huge departure in Trump's rhetoric, since over the last few months, he's advocated for deporting all illegal immigrants, regardless of their criminal record. Trump posted about his change of mind after Brooke Rollins, the secretary of agriculture, told him that farmers were concerned that ICE enforcement would negatively impact their businesses, a White House official and a person familiar told The Times. There are still officials within the administration who are more aligned with the idea of deporting as many migrants as possible. Chief among them is White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who has been advocating for a minimum of 3,000 arrests a day by ICE. ICE confirmed that Miller held a meeting with dozens of top directors and officials on May 20, where he reportedly 'came in there and eviscerated everyone.' According to the Washington Examiner, Miller allegedly told them: 'You guys aren't doing a good job. You're horrible leaders.' He then reportedly gave them an open challenge and asked: 'Why aren't you at Home Depot? Why aren't you at 7-Eleven?' ICE agents were reportedly surprised by the new guidance to limit raids on certain industries after weeks and months of being told to step it up. King said in his memo that the new rules would hamstring the administration's goals for higher numbers of arrests. 'We acknowledge that by taking this off the table, that we are eliminating a significant [number] of potential targets,' he wrote.

Mahmoud Khalil denied release from ICE after Trump administration's ‘cruel and shocking' tactics, lawyers say
Mahmoud Khalil denied release from ICE after Trump administration's ‘cruel and shocking' tactics, lawyers say

The Independent

time6 hours ago

  • The Independent

Mahmoud Khalil denied release from ICE after Trump administration's ‘cruel and shocking' tactics, lawyers say

After a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from imprisoning and deporting Mahmoud Khalil on one set of legal grounds, lawyers for the government now argue the prominent Columbia University student activist is being detained for an entirely different reason. On Friday morning, Khalil's legal team was preparing for his release from an immigration detention center in rural Louisiana, where he has been jailed for more than three months over the government's allegations that his Palestinian activism is a threat to foreign policy. But lawyers for the government now argue Khalil is being detained over allegations that he lied on immigration documents. District Judge Michael Farbiarz agreed to keep him in detention on those grounds, despite finding Khalil's ongoing detention unconstitutional just days earlier. 'Mahmoud Khalil was detained in retaliation for his advocacy for Palestinian rights,' Amy Greer, associate attorney at Dratel + Lewis and part of his legal team, said in a statement to The Independent. 'The government is now using cruel, transparent delay tactics to keep him away from his wife and newborn son ahead of their first Father's Day as a family,' Greer said. 'Instead of celebrating together, he is languishing in ICE detention as punishment for his advocacy on behalf of his fellow Palestinians,' she added. 'It is unjust, it is shocking, and it is disgraceful.' Khalil was accused of 'antisemitic activities' for his role as a Palestinian student activist against Israel's war in Gaza. Officials concede that he has not committed any crime, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sought to justify Khalil's arrest by invoking a rarely used law claiming that Khalil's presence in the United States undermines foreign policy interests of preventing antisemitism. But on June 11, Judge Farbiarz ruled that the administration had unconstitutionally wielded the law against Khalil, whose 'career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled,' the judge wrote. The government has 'little or no interest in applying the relevant underlying statutes in what is likely an unconstitutional way,' Farbiarz added. The judge said the government could not detain and deport him on those spurious legal grounds. He also said in his ruling that immigrants are rarely if ever imprisoned over alleged omissions in immigration documents. He even said an argument to keep Khalil over those allegations 'does not work.' The judge said it is Rubio's 'antisemitism' memo — not the immigration paperwork charges — that 'drives' Khalil's detention. But lawyers for the government on Friday claimed he was being detained over those paperwork allegations, which were not raised until more than a week after he was even arrested. The government has accused Khalil of omitting details about his work history from his green card application. Khalil disputes that he was employed by or served as an 'officer' of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, as the administration claims. He had completed an internship approved by the university as part of his graduate studies. Khalil's lawyers argue the Trump administration is only using those allegations as pretext to keep him detained if efforts to deport him for his activism were found to be unconstitutional. He will remain inside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, for now. Khalil was stripped of his green card and arrested in front of his then-pregnant wife in their New York City apartment building on March 8. He was then sent to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, roughly 1,300 miles away from their home in New York. His wife Noor Abdalla gave birth to their son in April. They met for the first and only time before his immigration court hearing last month. Khalil and his legal team argue his arrest and detention — and attempted removal from the country, which is currently blocked by court order — are retaliatory violations of his First Amendment right to freedom of speech and his Fifth Amendment right to due process of law, among other claims. His arrest sparked international outrage over the Trump administration's attempts to crush dissent against Israel's devastating campaign in Gaza. Rubio has said he 'proudly' revoked hundreds of student visas over campus activism, leading to several high-profile arrests of international scholars.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store