American teenager mistakenly deported to Colombia

A fourteen year old African American girl was mistakenly deported to Colombia and her family is demanding to know why she was deported; a fate reserved for illegal immigrants who don’t get legal documentation from an immigration attorney or overstay their visas.

Jakadrien Turner was a runaway that was picked up by Houston police and gave them a false name which was also the identity of a Colombian woman slated for deportation. ICE says that Jakadrien, who is pregnant, maintained her false identity throughout the process. She was handed over to an immigration judge who ordered her removed from the country, even though she was an African American teenager that spoke no Spanish.

ICE agents are supposed to verify the identity of illegal immigrants by matching fingerprints with their database. They apparently dropped the ball.

Turner’s grandmother found her by scouring the Facebook pages of Jakadrien’s friends. She had previously reported her granddaughter missing, but police were unable to locate her.

Turner may have maintained her false identity because she wanted to go to Colombia. She is currently being held by officials in Colombia who will not release her for unknown reasons.

The immigration system is not perfect and an immigrant will benefit from the assistance of an immigration lawyer when navigating the system. Immigration attorneys are able to help with all aspects of immigration from obtaining legal documentation or amnesty to representing a person facing deportation.