In one horrific swoop last week, unshackled federal immigration agents arrested an Illinois Dreamer, her parents—one of whom is a Lutheran minister—and a cousin. But as a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient, Paula Hincapie-Rendón should never have been targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the first place. She was released, but the rest of her family could still be deported to Colombia as soon as Tuesday.
Hincapie-Rendón’s nightmare began on May 8, when she was taking her 5-year-old to school and was pulled over by an unmarked car. It was ICE. “She asked them to identify themselves three times, but they refused,” the Chicago Sun Times reports. “On the fourth try, they answered.” Hincapie-Rendón was handcuffed. She pleaded with agents to let her take her daughter to her parents, which they did—just so they could then arrest them as well.
”Once at the house, agents found Hincapie-Rendón’s dad, Carlos Hincapie, leaving for work. They arrested him on the spot. Agents then went into the house and arrested Hincapie-Rendón’s mom, Betty Rendón, a Lutheran minister who was set to start her doctorate at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago in June. Agents also arrested Hincapie’s cousin, who was staying with the family.” ICE, Hincapie-Rendón said, “used me as an excuse to get my family. They tricked me.”
Their supporters, including members of the faith community, have since gathered thousands of signatures and held a rally in support of the family, but ICE has refused to budge on releasing the couple, who have no criminal record. “They don’t care that it’s a DACA recipient, they don’t care that this is a pastor, they obviously don’t care if people are loved members of the community,” said Voces de La Frontera’s Christine Neumann-Ortiz. “They just don’t care.”
ICE is additionally defending its decision to detain Hincapie-Rendón even though she has DACA protections, making the case for why permanent protections are urgently needed. “In a statement, an ICE official said ‘Hincapie-Rendón was encountered as part of a targeted enforcement action’ and ‘upon additional review and verification’ of her DACA status, the agency ‘exercised its discretionary authority and rescinded its order of supervision.’” This is an out-of-control agency, and the family’s supporters are calling on the U.S. senators from Illinois and Wisconsin, where Hincapie and Rendón are being jailed, to intervene.
“The response of DHS should be a rallying call to all of us that DHS continues to be a rogue agency that is quickly escalating their human rights violations,” Neumann-Ortiz continued in a statement. “Instead of making Americans safer, they are sowing operations that create fear and tear families apart. We must call on our U.S. Senators who have oversight over DHS to stop the deportation of Pastor Betty and her husband and to stop funding an agency that is causing so much harm in our communities."