Texas teen runaway who was deported to Colombia is returned to the U.S.

Texas teen runaway who was deported to Colombia is returned to the U.S.

WFAA-TV News

Jakadrien Lorece Turner, 15, was located in Bogota by Dallas police, with help from Colombian and U.S. officials. The deportation was a "big mistake somebody made," said Jakadrien's grandmother, Lorene Turner.

DALLAS -- A Texas teenager who was deported to Colombia after claiming to be an illegal immigrant was back in the United States Friday and at the center of an international mystery over how a minor could be sent to a country where she is not a citizen.

The 15-year-old's family has questioned why U.S. officials didn't do more to verify her identity and said she is not fluent in Spanish and had no ties to Colombia. While many facts of the case involving Jakadrien Lorece Turner remain unclear, U.S. and Colombian officials have pointed fingers over who is responsible.

Immigration experts say that while cases of mistaken identity are rare, people can slip through the cracks, especially if they don't have legal help or family members working on their behalf. But they say U.S. immigration authorities had the responsibility to determine whether a person is a citizen.

"Often in these situations they have these group hearings, where they tell everybody you're going to be deported," said Northwestern University political science professor Jacqueline Stevens, an immigration issues expert. "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."

Jakadrien was on a flight from Atlanta and would be in Dallas by Friday evening, her mother, Johnisa Turner, said in an interview. Earlier, she had said she planned to meet her daughter when she arrives in the city. "Our day has been hectic; hers is, too," Johnisa Turner said. "Just as long as she makes it home, just as long as she gets here."

The saga began when the teen ran away more than a year ago. Jakadrien's family said she left home in November 2010. Houston police said the girl was arrested April 2 for misdemeanor theft in that city and claimed to be Tika Lanay Cortez, a Colombian woman born in 1990. It was unclear if she has been living under that name.

Houston police said in a statement that her name was run through a database to determine if she was wanted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but results were negative. She then was turned over to the Harris County jail and booked on the theft charge.

The county sheriff's office said it ran her through available databases and did interviews necessary to establish her identity and immigration status in the country, with negative results. A sheriff's office employee recommended that an immigration detainer be put on her, and upon her release from jail, she was turned over to ICE.

U.S. immigration officials insist that they followed procedure and found nothing to indicate that the girl wasn't a Colombian woman living illegally in the country. An ICE official said the teen claimed to be Ms. Cortez throughout the Houston criminal proceedings and ensuing deportation process, in which an immigration judge ultimately ordered her back to Colombia.

Standard procedure before any deportation is to coordinate with the other country to establish that the deportee is from there, the ICE official said.

Jakadrien was issued travel documents at U.S. National Security Agency request and with information submitted by U.S. officials, the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Colombian officials are investigating what kind of verification was conducted by its Houston consulate to issue the temporary passport. The girl was given Colombian citizenship upon arriving in that country, said an ICE official, speaking on condition of anonymity without authorization to discuss additional case details.

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

Jakadrien's family said they have no idea why she ended up in Colombia. Johnisa Turner said the girl is a U.S. citizen who was born in Dallas and was not fluent in Spanish. She said neither she nor the teen's father had ties to Colombia.

The deportation was a "big mistake somebody made," said Jakadrien's grandmother, Dallas hairstylist Lorene Turner. "She looks like a kid, she acts like a kid. How could they think she wasn't a kid?" her grandmother asked Thursday. She said she spent a lot of time on the Internet trying to track down Jakadrien.

Ultimately, the girl was found in Bogota by the Dallas Police Department, with help from Colombian and U.S. officials. Dallas Police detective C'mon (pronounced Simone) Wingo, the detective on the case, said she was contacted in August by the girl's grandmother, who said Jakadrien had posted "kind of disturbing" messages on a Facebook account where she goes by yet another name.

Detective Wingo said the girl was located in early November through her use of a computer to log into Facebook. Relatives were then put in contact with the U.S. embassy in Bogota to provide pictures and documents to prove Jakadrien's identity.

Colombian officials said that when the government discovered that she was a U.S. citizen and a minor, it put her under the care of a welfare program.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the case was brought to the State Department's attention in mid-December. "We didn't have any involvement at all in this case until it came to light that there may be a problem with an American minor in Colombia ... and then we became involved both with Colombian authorities and with folks in Dallas," she said.

First published on January 7, 2012 at 12:00 am

Source: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12007/1201984-84-0.stm?cmpid=nationworld.xml

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