Wrongful Deportation, Trafficking and the Need to Have Proof of Your Adopted Child’s Citizenship UPDATED

Look no farther for an EPIC  of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) than the story of Jakadrien Turner.

This story is being reported by all major news sources.  Blaming the victim is the easy way out of reflecting on this disturbing story. Last night’s revelations are pointing towards a combination of mind-boggling incompetency of ICE and trafficking.

January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month (January 11 is the official Awareness day). Children are trafficked OUT of the US in many ways including through our foster care system. The revelation that ICE may now be unwittingly assisting in this horrendous crime is most disturbing.

As there have been international adoptees without knowledge of their lack of citizenship deported after committing minor crimes , (find five REFORM Talk stories  here ) this also serves as a reminder to international adoptive parents that the Certificate of Citizenship is a precious document that is your responsibility to secure for your child despite the annoying cost of it. Apply for it TODAY if don’t have it. Just DO IT. If your child is an adult, please ensure that they are aware of the need to apply for it.

Jakadrien’s Story

In November 2010, Jakadrien was fourteen. After her grandfather died and parents divorced, she ran away from her home in Dallas, Texas the first time. She wanted more freedom; her grades began to drop. She returned but ran away again. This time, she made her way to Houston where she got a job at a club and curiously took the name Tika Cortez. It is being implied by the family’s lawyer that this name was not randomly chosen. We will get back to this, but onto what happened next.

Grandmother Lorene Turner smartly decided to follow Jakadrien’s friend on Facebook where she discovered Jakadrien’s location, job and name change.

CNN says that on the Facebook page, “Johnisa Turner said she saw Jakadrien’s face on the marquee on her birthday.

“Oh my god,” the mother said when she saw it. “Is this really happening? Is that my child?”

A picture on Cortez’s Facebook page further confirmed for the family that the girl with the different name was their daughter. The picture had been taken of Jakadrien with her grandmother. Though her grandmother had been cut out of the picture, her hair still showed on the edge.

Her mother said she told Dallas authorities what she had found.

Then, Jakadrien’s Facebook page suddenly said she was in Colombia. The family later learned she had been arrested in Houston for shoplifting, but they say they had no idea how she wound up in Colombia after the arrest.”

The Arrest and the Deportation

Daily Mail says “She was arrested in Houston for theft in April last year. The teenager, then 14, gave officers a fake name – Tika Lanay Cortez – claiming she was a 21-year-old illegal immigrant from Colombia.  ”

“Chief Charles A McClelland Jr, of the Houston Police Department, released this statement:

‘On April 2, 2011, a female suspect was arrested by HPD officers for Class B misdemeanor theft. The female told the arresting officers she was a native of Colombia and that her name was Tika Lanay Cortez, born on March 24, 1990.

‘Officers transported her to the HPD Southeast Jail where she was processed. Personnel fingerprinted her and followed procedure by processing her through the secure communities database to determine if she was wanted by immigration and custom enforcement [ICE] personnel.”

‘It provided no prior arrest history, no wanted status or alternate identification for the prisoner. As is customary, the prisoner was the transported to the Harris County Jail and booked on a theft charge.’

She was convicted of theft under the name Cortez. Her defense attorney also believed that to be her true identity.” [Who was this defense attorney? What connections does he have? How did she know the exact birth date of the illegal immigrant? These are VERY important questions that need to be answered.]

“While serving time in prison, she was referred to the State Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who she also convinced that she came from Colombia.

After a thorough investigation, it was decided she would be deported. However prior to this, she was also interviewed by the Colombian Consulate who agreed that she was a Colombian citizen and approved paperwork for her.”

“According to ICE, checks on immigration status of individuals in the agency’s custody were not based on race, ethnicity or language abilities – but rather by documentation verifying the immigration status.”

“At the time of her arrest, the State Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ran Miss Turner’s fingerprints but she was not found in the system.

An ICE official denied that Miss Turner had assumed the name of an existing Colombian citizen with outstanding criminal warrants. ”

The Grio says, “In a statement regarding this case of mistaken identity, ICE Director of Public Affairs Brian Hale said:

ICE takes these allegations very seriously. At the direction of [the Department of Homeland Security], ICE is fully and immediately investigating this matter in order to expeditiously determine the facts of this case.

ICE also noted that lying by foreign nationals to prevent deportation has been documented in some cases. For the moment, the agency is not answering further questions regarding Jakadrien’s deportation.”

CNN says “The agency says authorities believed her story because she maintained her false identity throughout the process. They handed her over to an immigration judge, who ordered her removed from the country.

“At no time during these criminal proceedings was her identity determined to be false,” the agency says.

It says criminal database searches and biometric verification revealed no information to invalidate Jakadrien’s claims.

The family’s attorney, Ray Jackson, says it doesn’t make sense.

“They dropped the ball,” he said.

He says the immigration agency took Jakadrien’s fingerprints but failed to match them to the name she gave. The name matched a woman wanted by Interpol, Jackson says, so they “shipped her on through.”

The agency says it is taking the allegations very seriously and is “fully and immediately investigating the matter in order to expeditiously determine the facts of the case.””

After Deportation to Colombia

CNN says ” [Turner family attorney] Jackson says he believes something more sinister is going on.

“There has to be something behind this 15-year-old girl ending up in Colombia, besides the fact that ICE dropped the ball,” he said. “Of all the nicknames … to pick one that’s of Latino descent, for that to be a name that sticks and gets you deported, that doesn’t make sense.”

Pictures of Jakadrien in Colombia showed her sitting on men’s laps smoking marijuana, her grandmother said. But Jakadrien, she said, seemed to be reaching out for help, listing on Facebook the names of everyone at parties, perhaps so she could be traced.

Jackson says he doesn’t believe Jakadrien was trying to fake her way out of the country by using the false name throughout the process.

“I don’t buy that she had the wherewithal to be able to bamboozle the government,” Jackson says.

“You know, kids are scared when they get around authorities. … To think that you could bamboozle them to create a new identity, it just doesn’t make sense.”

Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday that Jakadrien first arrived in Bogota after she was deported on May 23.

The ministry said it was investigating what sort of verification its consulate in Texas requested before giving the girl an expedited provisional passport as part of deportation proceedings, and how Jakadrien received work authorization for training at a call center as part of the government’s “Welcome Home” program.

Attorneys with the program made a sworn declaration in front of a notary with “inexact information” that allowed her to receive work papers, the foreign ministry said.

“Those lawyers are no longer providing services to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the statement said.

Finding Jakadrien

Daily Mail says “After [Lorene Turner] found out where her granddaughter was [from the Facebook location change], Mrs Turner contacted the U.S. government who found out where the girl was living. The American Embassy in Colombia asked police to go and collect her. ”

CNN says, “The teen was placed in a protection program by the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare on December 1 after officials learned of her situation, the foreign ministry said.”

“The Colombian Institute for Family Welfare confirmed Thursday that Turner is in its custody, is pregnant, and entered the country as an adult. The institute said Colombian authorities learned about the case a month ago.”
Getting Back to the US

Late last night arrangements were finally made to get Jakadrien back to the US.

CNN reports,  “Colombia is preparing to hand over to U.S. officials a Dallas teenager who was mistakenly deported after she ran away from home more than a year ago, the South American country’s foreign ministry said in a statement Thursday night.

Jakadrien Turner will be turned over to diplomatic officials Friday so she can be transported to the United States, the statement said. But the foreign ministry did not say when — or how — that will happen.

The U.S. Embassy in Bogota is working with Colombian authorities but cannot provide additional details “due to privacy considerations,” said a U.S. State Department official who asked to remain anonymous per department policy.”

Sources:
African-American teen missing since 2010 mistakenly deported to Colombia
[The Grio 1/4/12 by Alexis Garrett Stodghill]

How a Dallas teenager convinced the government she was an illegal immigrant to get deported and wound up pregnant and imprisoned in Colombia
[Daily Mail 1/6/12 by Louis Boyle]

Colombia: Texas teen mistakenly deported will be handed over to U.S. officials
[CNN 1/5/12]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Questions remain regarding possible trafficking of this child. Did she meet someone in that Houston club that coerced her into taking that specific name? How did she know the exact birth date? How was she represented by her defense lawyer? How many others were deported in similar circumstances?

Update: “A Texas teenager who was deported to Colombia after claiming to be an illegal immigrant has been reunited with her family in the United States.

The 15-year-old girl, Jakadrien Lorece Turner, remains at the centre of an international mystery over how a minor could be sent to a country where she is not a citizen.”

“‘Often in these situations they have these group hearings where they tell everybody you’re going to be deported,’ said Jacqueline Stevens, a political science professor at Northwestern University, who is an expert on immigration issues.

‘Everything is really quick, even if you understand English you wouldn’t understand what is going on. If she were in that situation as a 14-year-old she would be herded through like cattle and not have a chance to talk to the judge about her situation.'”