• Booted and banned: Former U.S. troops battle to come home

    Courtesy of Hector Barajas

    Expelled to Mexico from the United States after serving in the American military, veterans Fabian Rebolledo (first from the left), Juan Jose Sotomayor (third from the left) and Hector Barajas fourth from the left) are waging a legal battle for medical benefits and, perhaps, a return home. Tony Lamson, (second from the left), is a missionary helping the veterans

    By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

    Five ex-American service members are mashed into a two-bedroom apartment in the Mexican border town of Rosarito Beach — a place of last stand, a foreign exile they’ve dubbed the “support house for banished veterans.”


    All five were deported from the United States after being convicted of unrelated crimes —  including nonviolent offenses — committed after serving their nation, both in war and peace. They’re using their cramped hub to push for veterans’ medical benefits and lobby for a Congressional hearing to examine their expulsions. Yet there’s an even more pressing matter: more ex-U.S. troops are headed their way following similar deportations.

    “It’s just a matter of time before I get two or three more guys. We don’t have the room. I guess we’ll put up some tents outside,” said Hector Barajas, 36, leader of the house and an Army paratrooper from 1995 to 2001. He immigrated from Mexico with his family when he was a child, growing up in Compton, Calif. Soon after his service, he pleaded guilty to firing a gun into a vehicle. No one was hurt. He served two years. In 2004, he was deported to Mexico. 

    “I paid my debt. When I enlisted, I swore to defend the Constitution and defend the United States against all foreign threats, Mexico as well. I was wiling to go to war with Mexico. I’m still willing to do that,” said Barajas, who, like the other members of the house, had green cards when they enlisted in the U.S. military. “I’ve got bad knees from being a paratrooper but I can’t access (Veterans Affairs) benefits.”

    Numbers on deported veterans are, at best, guesswork. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not currently track what portion of the individuals removed from the United States are military veterans. At the California detention center where Barajas was held a decade ago, he counted 17 fellow veterans, which led him to roughly calculate that among 250 such centers across the country, there are perhaps more than 4,000 veterans set to be expelled at any given time after their criminal convictions.

    “We don’t know how many,” said Craig Shagin, a lawyer in Harrisburg, Pa., now representing three veterans facing deportation and who has had 14 other veteran-clients booted out of the United States to Great Britain, Italy, Jamaica, Uruguay and other countries.  “You’d think if we were proud of this kind of thing, we’d be keeping the records.”

    Since September 2001, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service has naturalized 74,977 members of the military, with 9,773 of those service members becoming citizens. They originally came from 27 countries including: Afghanistan, China  (Hong Kong), Cuba (Guantanamo), Iraq, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.

    The deportations of veterans may follow convictions of felonies such as homicides or sexual assaults, but, as Shagin said, “they don't have to be felonies at all. They often are misdemeanors or unclassified crimes. Of course, I don’t look at the crime. They were punished for the crimes, whatever they were. As veterans who served this country, they should not face deportation.

    “But yes, minor, minor, crimes can lead to deportation,” Shagin added. “Under U.S. immigration law, there are certain offenses — most notably crimes of theft and crimes of violence — that become aggravated when the alien is sentenced for a year or more in prison. And that’s even if the sentence was suspended (or reduced).

    “These polices are not liberal or conservative, not pro-immigration or anti-immigration, they’re just plain stupid. It’s awfully hard to live with this blatant stupidity,” Shagin said.

    Said ICE spokeswoman Ernestine Fobbs: "ICE carefully reviews any potential enforcement action involving a veteran. Prior to removing an alien with military service, agents must first receive authorization from senior leadership in a field office, following an evaluation by local counsel. ICE exercises prosecutorial discretion for members of the armed forces who have honorably served our country on a case-by-case basis when appropriate and (ICE) Director (John) Morton's June 2011 memo on prosecutorial discretion specifically identifies service in the U.S. military as a positive factor that should be considered when deciding whether prosecutorial discretion is appropriate.”

    Courtesy of Hector Barajas

    Hector Barajas when he served as a U.S. Army paratrooper.

    One of Barajas’ housemates, Fabian Rebolledo, a former Army paratrooper who served eight months in Kosovo, was convicted on an insufficient funds charge after writing a $750 check. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison — triggering, he said, an automatic deportation — even though he served only eight months.

    Rebolledo spent most of his life in California after coming to America with his family at age 13. He was deported in 2010.

    “Ever since then, I’m here,” said Rebolledo, 37.  “We are expanding. We are telling everybody about our cause. Every single place we go here, we talk about this. When I joined the military, I was promised my citizenship. My recruiter lied to me.”

    Groups pushing to halt illegal immigration and stiffen border security, like the nonprofit Federation for American Immigrant Reform (FAIR), insist that veterans like Rebolledo and Barajas all agreed to a sacred accord when they crossed into U.S. soil: obey the laws or return to their places of origin.

    “When you come to the United States as a legal immigrant, the bargain is you are not going to get into trouble. It’s a conditional agreement. We allow you to come here and pursue life, liberty and happiness and, in return, we expect you’re not going to commit felonies,” said Ira Mehlman, the spokesman for FAIR. “They served in the military but that doesn’t exempt one from complying with the law."

    “It’s a question of loyalty,” responded attorney Shagin. "Loyalty is a reciprocal concept — it goes both ways. You can’t say to somebody, 'You will be loyal to us' and then not give them a basic benefit of that loyalty. That does not mean they should get off for crimes that they committed. If you commit rape, murder, treason, you’re punished just like I would be. But if you served in the armed forces, you should not also lose the country that you served."

  • Sen. Menendez employed intern who was illegal immigrant, sex offender, AP reports

    New Jersey U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez talks to NewsNation's Tamron Hall about his knowledge of the situation surrounding the arrest of an unpaid intern working for him.

     

    By NBC News staff and wire service reports

    Sen. Robert Menendez confirmed to msnbc TV’s Tamron Hall on NewsNation on Wednesday an AP report that an unpaid intern working in his office had been arrested by immigration authorities for being in the country illegally. The Associated Press reported that the 18-year-old from Peru was also a registered sex offender.


    The Homeland Security Department instructed federal agents not to arrest him until after Election Day, a U.S. official involved in the case told the AP. Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, told Hall he knew nothing about that allegation and did not learn of the arrest until just before appearing on msnbc Tuesday. He said his staff learned of the arrest Monday.

    Luis Abrahan Sanchez Zavaleta was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in front of his home in New Jersey on Dec. 6, two federal officials told the AP. Sanchez, who entered the country on a now-expired visitor visa from Peru, is facing deportation and remains in custody, the officials told the AP. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of Sanchez's immigration case.

    A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to an AP request for further details.

    Menendez, who advocates aggressively for pro-immigration policies, was re-elected in November with 58 percent of the vote. Sanchez told ICE agents that he worked on immigration issues for the senator, according to AP. A spokesman for Menendez told the AP she was looking into the matter.

    Online jail records did not indicate whether Sanchez has an attorney. Immigration officials there were relaying a request from the AP to speak with Sanchez in jail.

    The prosecutor's office in Hudson County, N.J., said Sanchez was found to have violated the law in 2010 and subsequently required to register as a sex offender, the AP reported. The exact charge was unclear because Sanchez was prosecuted as a juvenile and those court records are not publicly accessible. The prosecutor's office confirmed to AP that Sanchez registered as a sex offender, although his name does not appear on the public registry.

    Related stories

    Authorities in Hudson County notified ICE agents in early October that they suspected Sanchez was an illegal immigrant who was a registered sex offender and who may be eligible to be deported, according to the AP. ICE agents in New Jersey notified superiors at the Homeland Security Department because they considered it a potentially high profile arrest, and DHS instructed them not to arrest Sanchez until after the November election, one U.S. official told the AP. ICE officials complained that the delay was inappropriate, but DHS directed them several times not to act, the official told the AP.

    It was not immediately clear why federal immigration authorities would not have been notified sooner about Sanchez's status.

    During discussions about when and where to arrest Sanchez, the U.S. reviewed Sanchez's application for permission to stay in the country as part of President Barack Obama's policy to allow up to 1.7 million young illegal immigrants avoid deportation and get permission to work for up to two years. As a sex offender, he would not have been eligible. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, notified Sanchez of that shortly before his arrest, one official said.

    During the final weeks of President George W. Bush's administration, ICE was criticized for delaying the arrest of President Barack Obama's aunt, who had ignored an immigration judge's order to leave the country several years earlier after her asylum claim was denied. She subsequently won the right to stay in the United States after an earlier deportation order, and there was no evidence of involvement by the White House.

    In that case, the Homeland Security Department had imposed an unusual directive days before the 2008 election requiring high-level approval before federal agents nationwide could arrest fugitive immigrants including Zeituni Onyango, the half-sister of Obama's late father, according to the AP. The directive from ICE expressed concerns about "negative media or congressional interest," according to a copy of that directive obtained by AP. The department lifted the immigration order weeks later.

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  • US soldier who refused to go back to Iraq arrested on return from Canada

    Aaron Vincent Elkaim / AP file

    Kimberly Rivera speaks at a news conference in Toronto on Aug. 31.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    The first female American soldier to seek refuge in Canada rather than return to duty in Iraq was arrested at the U.S. border Thursday after losing her appeal against deportation, according to an advocacy group that had campaigned on her behalf.

    Kimberly Rivera, a 30-year-old private who served three months in Iraq and came to Canada while on leave in 2007, was taken into custody at the Thousand Islands Bridge border station about 30 miles north of Watertown, N.Y., Reuters reported.

    The War Resisters Support Campaign said on its website that Rivera’s partner and four children crossed the border separately as “Kimberly did not want her children to have to see her detained by the U.S. military, as this would be traumatic for them.”

    “During a Federal Court hearing in Toronto on Monday, lawyers for the Department of Justice argued that Kimberly would not be detained when she crossed the border,” the War Resisters statement said.

    “… Just as the Rivera family’s lawyer argued in court and as was predicted by her Canadian supporters, Kimberly was detained immediately upon crossing the border into the United States of America,” it added. “Kimberly now awaits punishment for refusing to return to Iraq, a conflict which Kimberly and Canada determined was wrong.”


    'Not genuine refugees'
    During the Vietnam War, Canada was a haven for tens of thousands of draft dodgers and deserters, but soldiers from Iraq, who were volunteers, have been met with little sympathy from the Canadian government.

    Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s spokeswoman, Alexis Pavlich, told The Star newspaper in an emailed statement that U.S. military personnel who had moved to Canada to avoid being deployed to Iraq were “not genuine refugees under the internationally accepted meaning of the term.”

    “These unfounded claims clog up our system for genuine refugees who are actually fleeing persecution,” she added.

    The last 480 troops left Iraq early Sunday morning in high spirits, happy to be heading home for the holidays. NBC's Richard Engel reports.

    State Department: No secret plan to invade Canada

    In an interview with The Star published Wednesday, Rivera said she had joined the army because she “wanted to fight for human rights and the safety of my country.”

    “I wanted to do something good … I grew up learning that our rights come from a soldier who gave his or her life so that we could have rights,” she added.

    'The war is over': Last US soldiers leave Iraq

    That view changed after three months in Iraq.

    “Citizens were being put on random lockdowns. We used city patrols, checkpoints and violence and intimidation against innocent civilians,” she told The Star. “We raided their houses without cause. I saw mothers and fathers and grandparents and children come to us asking for compensation for their dead loved ones. There was no good reason for their pain and suffering.”

    The paper said she described becoming a conscientious objector as “the most positive thing I’ve done.” 

    Tutu: Iraq war based on 'a lie'
    Nobel peace prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, famous for campaigning against apartheid in South Africa, made a last-ditch plea for the Canadian authorities to allow Rivera to stay.

    “When the United States and Britain made the case in 2003 for the invasion of Iraq, it was on the basis of a lie. We were told that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that these weapons posed an imminent threat to humanity,” he wrote in The Globe and Mail newspaper Monday.

    NBC's Richard Engel answers your questions about Iraq

    “But those who were called to fight this war believed what their leaders had told them. … U.S. soldiers such as Kimberly Rivera, through her own experience in Iraq, came to the conclusion that the invasion had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, the presence of U.S. forces only created immense misery for civilians and soldiers alike,” he said.

    Read more international stories from NBC News

    “Those leaders to whom soldiers such as Kimberly Rivera looked for answers failed a supreme moral test. More than 110,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict since 2003, millions have been displaced and nearly 4,500 American soldiers have been killed,” he added.

    The Pentagon had no immediate comment, according to Reuters.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Miami teen who got reprieve from deportation graduates high school

    AP

    Daniela Pelaez works on a school assignment at her home in Miami, March 13, 2012.

    By NBC News and msnbc.com staff

     
    MIAMI – Daniela Peláez, the North Miami Senior High School valedictorian who garnered national attention after nearly being deported, is graduating on Friday.


    Peláez is scheduled to deliver her school's commencement speech at 2:50 p.m. ET at Florida International University.

    Peláez's story blasted onto international headlines after her request for a green card had been denied by a judge, sparking a national debate on the Dream Act.

    More than 1,000 students at North Miami Senior High School in Miami walked out of classes and took to the streets on March 2, protesting the immigration judge’s order to deport the 18-year-old honors student.

    View NBCMiami.com's story on Daniela Peláez's big day

    Peláez was later granted a two-year reprieve in March after facing imminent deportation.

    Peláez boasts a 6.7 GPA and plans to attend Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in the fall to study biology and history. Her career goal is to attend medical school and become a heart surgeon.

    Peláez left Colombia with her parents in 1998. Her family overstayed a tourist visa in the U.S. when she was 4 years old. Her father eventually became a permanent resident through her brother, who serves in the U.S. Army and achieved U.S. citizenship. But her mother is stuck in Colombia, after she returned there in 2006 for medical reasons.

    Peláez worked with Florida lawmakers to raise awareness about young undocumented students like herself, backing The Studying Towards Adjusted Residency Status Act, or STARS, which allows students to remain the U.S. if they get a college degree.

    The STARS Act would allow illegal immigrants who are 19 years old and younger, arrived in the United States before age 16, and have lived here for at least the previous five years the opportunity to stay for another five years and eventually get legal status if they earn a college degree and meet certain other criteria. 

    Peláez and her sister also started their own foundation, We Are Here Foundation, Inc., to raise money and provide scholarships, grants and support to student immigrants in the U.S.

    NBCMiami.com contributed to this report.

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  • Miami valedictorian who faced deportation gets to stay - for now

    View more videos at: http://nbcmiami.com.

    By Elizabeth Chuck, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A Florida high school valedictorian who was on the brink of deportation has received some good news: She won't be forced to leave the country - for two years, anyway.

     Daniela Pelaez, 18, came here when she was four, when her parents entered the U.S. illegally, according to local news reports. And on Monday of last week, a judge ordered her, and her older sister, out of the country.

    Daniela "texted me that afternoon, 'Life sucks, I can't believe this. I have to get out by March 28th,'" Emily Sell, Pelaez's best friend, told msnbc.com over the phone on Wednesday. "And I said, 'That's not going to happen. I'm not going to let that happen.'"

    Sell started a petition for Pelaez, which she said collected more than 15,000 signatures, and organized a protest at North Miami High School, where nearly all of Pelaez's 2,600 classmates joined in a walk-out last Friday in solidarity, according to The Miami Herald.

    "Over my dead body will this child be deported," Miami-Dade Superintendent of Schools Alberto Carvalho, holding Pelaez's hand, said on Friday, reported NBCMiami.com.

    High school students fight valedictorian's deportation order

    But it wasn't until Tuesday of this week that Pelaez's attorney heard from Homeland Security thatdeportation order had been deferred.

    "Two years is good, but it's not the goal," Pelaez's attorney, Nera Shefer, told the Miami Herald Wednesday, adding that Pelaez is "very happy she’s going to be able to finish high school and go into finals with a clear mind."

    Superintendent Carvalho echoed those sentiments on Thursday.

    "I'm elated over what I believe is a temporary win," he told msnbc.com. "I hope this incites a national dialogue that will address the sentiments of students and young people who find themselves in no man's land. It's time for the nation to take on this issue in a non-partisan way."

    The Pelaez family -- both parents, as well as Daniela, her brother, Johan, and her sister, Dayana -- came to the U.S. in 1998. The Miami office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not tell msnbc.com why it chose to defer, and not dismiss or uphold, the deportation decision, saying it had “exercised prosecutorial discretion in Daniela and Dayana Pelaez’s case and will defer action for two years." 

      ICE uses "prosecutorial discretion," in which an agency decides what charges to bring and how to pursue legal action, on a case-by-case basis, the agency said.

    "ICE is focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes the removal of criminal aliens, recent border crossers and egregious immigration law violators, such as those who have been previously removed from the United States and returned,” Nestor Yglesias, a public affairs officer, said in a statement.

    Repeated calls to Shafer, Pelaez's lawyer, were not returned on Wednesday.

    Not everyone agreed Pelaez should stay.

    "She should be deported," Linda Simmons, who has a son in ninth grade at North Miami High, told NBCMiami.com last week. "Her parents broke the law."

    Read Pelaez's story on NBCMiami.com

    Sell, Pelaez's best friend, told msnbc.com she received a lot of hate mail while she was campaigning for Pelaez.

    "But I've gotten more positive emails, and I deal with a lot of the hate emails. It's worth it in the end," she said. "She would do this for anyone."

    Best friend: 'She helped me through the foreclosure'
    Sell told msnbc.com that she met Pelaez two years ago when Sell transferred to North Miami High School.

    "I actually transferred to the school sophomore year because our house got foreclosed," she said. "Daniela and I always clicked. We were always close academically. We became friends very quickly. She helped me through the foreclosure. That was a very hard time for me. I like repaying her for that."

    The two girls are in an international baccalaureate program, which Sell says has just 80 students, at their large high school.

    "In our senior class, there are 30 [students]. We're very close. For Daniela to get deported, it's like a family member to get deported," she said.

    Pelaez was invited to meet Sen. Mark Rubio, R-Fla., on Wednesday.

    Before boarding her flight to Washington on Wednesday to meet with Rubio, Pelaez told NBCMiami.com, "I'm excited because I've never been to Washington ... I'm very happy and relieved that there's gonna be some help."

    Rubio, as well as several other Florida representatives, had publicly supported her staying in the U.S. Pelaez's school superintendent told msnbc.com he reached out to his state lawmakers as soon as he heard about her predicament.

    "From the very first day that I learned about this, which is the day that the judge issued the deportation order, I called a number of politicians, and the result has been pretty obvious," Carvalho said. "I'm pleased that people of good minds and good intentions have been able to find common ground."

    Pelaez told NBCMiami.com last Thursday that she has no memory of Colombia and loves her friends and this country.

    "I've been asked the question before: 'Do I feel American?' or 'Do I believe I am?'" she said. "And I don't think it's a question. I'm American. I know the national anthem. I know the laws. I know what it is to be an American."

    Her older sister, Dayana, is 26, and couldn't go to college because she's not a citizen, Sell told msnbc.com. She works to help support the family.

    Pelaez's older brother is in the Army and is a citizen; her father obtained citizenship through her brother, NBCMiami.com reported. Their mother had divorced their father and returned to Colombia for health reasons shortly after moving to the U.S., said the station.

    Pelaez has a near-perfect GPA and has applied to numerous Ivy League schools, and she dreams of being a cardiac surgeon, Sell told msnbc.com.

    “She's the best in bio," Sell said. "She did a medical program with the University of Miami, and she was literally salivating at it! She was like, 'I looked at cadavers today!' She wouldn't get to do that in Colombia."

    Pelaez has been overwhelmed by all the attention her case has garnered, Sell said, but hopes it brings change for other kids like her --  whether they're class valedictorians or not.

    "Immigration is extremely controversial," Sell said. "A lot of people have polar feelings on it. Immigrants can make it in society. Daniela is destined for so much greatness. There are so many other kids and adults that aren't exactly like Daniela, but they deserve to stay here just as much."

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  • North Miami high school students fight valedictorian's deportation order

    More than 1,000 students at North Miami High School in Miami, Fla., protest the deportation order for 18-year-old Daniela Pelaez, the school's valedictorian. WTVJ-TV's Jeff Burnside reports.

    By Julia Bagg and Brian Hamacher, NBCMiami.com

     

    MIAMI -- Classmates of a North Miami High School valedictorian facing deportation protested Friday morning.

    An immigration judge on Monday ordered the deportation of 18-year-old Daniela Pelaez, who was brought illegally to the United States by her parents when she was 4 years old.

    Holding signs and shouting "Education not deportation" and "let her stay," the students filed out of their classrooms around 9 a.m.

    Pelaez met with Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who later walked out with her to joining the protest holding her hand.

    "Over my dead body will this child be deported," Carvalho said.

    Read NBCMiami.com's coverage of student's immigration battle

    Emily Sell, Pelaez's best friend and the organizer of the protest, showed up at the school bright and early Friday to help her friend.

     

    "We've been making posters like crazy," said Sell, the school's salutatorian. "I hope this march brings the proper attention to the issue of deportation."

    Pelaez expressed her appreciation for her friends' actions when she arrived for school before the protest.

    "They're the vanguard," Pelaez said.

    Pelaez left Colombia in 1998 with her parents, who entered the United States illegally and divorced before Pelaez could become a citizen. She told NBC Miami Thursday that she has no memory of Colombia and loves her friends and this country.

    "I've been asked the question before: 'Do I feel American?' or 'Do I believe I am?'" she said. "And I don't think it's a question. I'm American. I know the national anthem. I know the laws. I know what it is to be an American."

    Pelaez has earned nearly all A's in the school's international baccalaureate program, but her ability to go to college is threatened substantially by her immigration status.

    Late Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a statement saying it will not take further steps in the case until the conclusion of Pelaez's appeal on the judge's decision.

    Not everyone agrees Pelaez should stay.

    "She should be deported," said Linda Simmons, who has a son in ninth grade at North Miami High. "Her parents broke the law."

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  • Mistakenly deported teen: 'I made a lot of horrible mistakes'

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    Updated at 9:10 p.m. ET Feb. 3: The Associated Press reports that the Dallas teenager who was deported to South America under a false name never expressed concern during jailhouse phone calls that she was being misidentified as an illegal immigrant from Colombia. 

    More from the AP story:

    The more than two dozen recorded telephone calls reviewed by The Associated Press show 15-year-old Jakadrien Turner expected to be deported to Colombia yet did not complain of having no ties to the country.

    Instead, during several conversations she had with two men she identified herself as Tika Lanay Cortez and discussed renewing her green card and having her passport and Colombian identification card sent to authorities.

    Yet, Turner claimed in a recent TV interview that she repeatedly tried to convince authorities she had lied when she initially identified herself to Houston police as Cortez, a 21-year-old Colombian national, after being arrested for shoplifting.

    Original post: Jakadrien Turner has a message for other girls thinking about running away from home:  It’s just not worth it.

    Jakadrien Turner sasy she's glad to be back home in the U.S.

    The 15-year-old Texas girl, who left her family, got arrested for shoplifting and then was mistakenly deported to Colombia, admits her nightmarish ordeal was partially her own doing.

    "I made a lot of horrible mistakes, did a lot of things I'm not proud of," Jakadrien told Dallas TV station WFAA on Thursday.

    Jakadrien's saga began when she ran away from home more than a year ago. Houston police said the girl was arrested on April 2, 2011, for misdemeanor theft in that city and claimed to be Tika Lanay Cortez, a Colombian woman born in 1990.

    She was deported to Colombia in May and apparently spent eight months there before she was returned to her family in Texas.

    She says she tried to tell Houston police when she was in jail that she was really Jakadrien Turner, but they wouldn't believe her.

    "It's like the story of the boy that cried wolf. I've lied multiple times before. I've never been honest. I've made a lot of stories up. I made the name up 'Tika Cortez,'" Jadadrien told WFAA. "But at a certain point, I just gave up because I said it multiple times: 'I'm Jakadrien Turner, I'm 15 years old, and why am I here?'"

    The girl was given Colombian citizenship upon arriving in that country, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official has said.

    According to the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the girl was enrolled in the country's "Welcome Home" program after she arrived. She was given shelter, psychological assistance and a job at a call center, a statement from the agency said.

    Jakadrien was flown back to the U.S. and reunited with her family on Jan. 6.

    Jakadrien says she doesn’t want people to feel sorry for her. She just wants to share story in hopes of warning other girls of the dangers of running away.

    "Hopefully my story will help them to realize that they need to go back home,” she told WFAA.

    Watch  the full WFAA interview.

    The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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  • Feds deport woman to Mexico, activists had rallied

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    Federal immigration authorities have deported a 22-year-old woman from Ohio over the objections of activists who feared she could be suicidal if sent back to Mexico.

    According to The Cincinnati Enquirer, Yanelli Hernandez was returned to Mexico on Tuesday. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said her removal was ordered by an immigration judge. She was in the country illegally and was convicted in Butler County on charges of driving under the influence and forgery.

    Supporters said that, Hernandez, a factory worker, had attempted suicide twice, and immigration rights activists phoned federal offices this week to urge that she be allowed to stay.

    An ICE letter denying her request to stay said there was no documentation to support claims that she faced hardships from longstanding mental illness.

    Activist Marco Saaverda, an organizer with the Ohio chapter of DreamActivist.org and a friend of Hernandez’s, told the Enquirer he felt “extreme frustration. ... We will pursue all of the mental health concerns that this case has revealed.”

    The woman had been in the United States since age 13. She had been living in the Cincinnati area for five years.

    "She needs treatment and not to be deported to Mexico, where she knows nobody," Fernanda Marroquin, an organizer with DreamActivist Pennsylvania, told Philadelphia Daily News on Monday.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • 'One day I will be back': Deported coach dreams of US return

    By msnbc.com staff

    Miguel Aparicio, a former Phoenix high school coach whose deportation to Mexico sparked a national outcry, says he has been struggling with his life since leaving Arizona.

    “I feel so depressed,” Aparicio recently told The Arizona Republic in Phoenix. “Sometimes when I’m dreaming, I wake up in the middle of the night and I think I’m in Phoenix. But then I look around and I realize, no, I’m not.”

    The former high school cross-country coach's story unfolded last summer when his deportation came on the day the Obama administration made a policy change that would allow thousands of undocumented residents like Aparicio to remain in the country.

    Read original story: Deportee struggles to readjust to life outside Phoenix 

    In June, Immigration and Customs Enforcement's director John Morton announced that prosecutors and immigration agents would consider a defendant's history and community ties when deciding whether to press for deportation.

    Aparicio's lawyer, Jose Luis Peñalosa, was quick to jump on the policy change, filing a motion on his client's behalf. But, it came too late and failed to win the man's stay of deportation, the Arizona Republic reported.

    Aparicio has been described in local news outlets as a coach who contributed a great deal of success and good to Phoenix-area schools, despite being an undocumented worker and having a DUI on his record. 

    These days, Aparicio spends his days tending 26 sheep on his family's farm in Guanajuato. He's also dreaming of his return to America, according to the newspaper.

    "I am just waiting to see if they change something about immigration," he told the Arizona Republic. "I am just hoping because I do not feel like the ICE officers were really fair with me. They just looked at the negative stuff. They did not look at the positive stuff. And I have a lot. I know for sure that one day I will be back."

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  • Deported teen reunites with family in US; she deceived us, ICE says

    By msnbc.com staff

    Reuters

    Jakadrien Turner, 15, in an undated handout photo provided by the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The Texas girl was flying home to the United States on Friday to be reunited with her family, nine months after she was deported to South America in a bizarre mix-up.

    Update at 11:05 p.m. ET: Jakadrien Lorece Turner, the 15-year-old Texas girl mistakenly sent to South America in May after claiming to be an illegal immigrant, was reunited with her family Friday night after flying home from Colombia, The Associated Press reported.

    She was flanked by her mother, grandmother and law enforcement when she emerged from the international gate Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

    "She's happy to be home," the family's attorney, Ray Jackson, said, adding that the family would not issue any statements Friday night.

    He said the family was "ecstatic" to have Jakadrien back in Texas and they plan to "do what we can to make sure she gets back to a normal life."

    Update at 8 p.m. ET: Turner is back in the U.S. and will be in Dallas on Friday evening, her mother told The Associated Press.

    Johnisa Turner said Jakadrien was on a flight from Atlanta. She said she has "a gazillion questions" for Jakadrien. "Our day has been hectic, hers is too," Turner said, "just as long as she makes it home, just as long as she gets here."

    From the original post: Jakadrien Turner, arrested as a runaway and then mistakenly deported, is on her way home to the United States after the girl’s grandmother used Facebook to locate her in Colombia, thegrio.com reported Friday.

    “They didn't do their work,” the grandmother Lorene Turner said of the federal government in an interview with a Dallas television station. “How do you deport a teenager and send her to Colombia without a passport, without anything?"

    But the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the deportation took place because the girl lied about her identity and was not clear about her citizenship status, thegrio.com reported.

    Turner was reported missing in November 2010 by her relatives in Dallas. When she was arrested for a minor theft in April 2011 in Houston, she reportedly used the alias Tika Lanay Cortez and claimed to be a 21-year-old from Colombia. She maintained the alias throughout her court appearances, conviction and jail time, Houston officials confirmed.

    According to Houston police, Turner had apparently been using the name after running away from home after her parents divorced and her grandfather died.

    ICE deported Turner — an African American who speaks no Spanish — as part of a program to remove foreign nationals from U.S. prisons.

    After Dallas police helped Turner pinpoint her granddaughter's location in Colombia, local authorities detained her and kept her in detention for more than a month before boarding a plane home on Friday.

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