Riccy Enriquez Perdomo, a 22-year-old wife and mom of two U.S. citizens, faces imminent deportation despite the fact that she is an active Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient. Perdomo was taken into custody after going to an immigration office to pay the bond for another immigrant who was eligible for release. When she was asked for her information, she was wrongly told she didn’t have DACA and was arrested. Her brother-in-law, Robert Cote:
"We called ICE in Chicago, and the person there told us, ‘When Trump came in, DACA doesn't exist anymore.’ I couldn't believe they told me that."
That is a flat-out lie—while DACA’s future is in limbo due to threats from Republicans like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the program is still in place, and Perdomo’s DACA—which protects her and 800,000 immigrant youth from deportation—is active and was renewed just this past January, according to an attorney.
Perdomo should not be sitting in a detention center. She should never have been taken into custody in the first place, and since being arrested, she has been shuttled to four different immigration detention centers, often without her family’s knowledge. Now they fear she’s close to being torn from her U.S. home of over a decade.
U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) moved Enriquez to the McHenry County Jail northwest of Chicago. It is the last domestic stop for detainees in the Chicago ICE region before deportation. ICE would not confirm her current location Wednesday or whether the agency intends to deport her.
A public affairs spokeswoman at the Chicago immigration office referred The Enquirer to a "detainee" search function at www.ice.gov that was malfunctioning Wednesday morning. An ICE spokesman in Detroit was unavailable. Another ICE public affairs officer in Washington, D.C., did not respond to an email request for information.
"This is not the first time this year that ICE has misrepresented the situation on DACA for several immigrants around the country," [attorney Don] Sherman said.
He said he completed and filed Enriquez's DACA forms and confirmed Tuesday with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that she has legal status under DACA.
"I am disturbed by reports that a Dreamer with DACA protection has been detained," said a statement from the office of Sen. Dick Durbin. "My office is in touch with ICE for an explanation. When he was Secretary of [the Department of Homeland Security], White House Chief of Staff John Kelly assured me that no one with DACA would lose this protection unless they violated the terms of the program, and I intend to hold him to that commitment."
Just this week, federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel, attacked by Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign due to his Mexican heritage, may order the administration to allow another Dreamer who was deported despite having valid DACA to return to the U.S. for a trial over the case. This is despite Trump saying this past January that “we are gonna deal with DACA with heart." Where is that heart now?
Joshua Stehlik, attorney with the National Immigration Law Center said Perdomo’s case “causes concerns among DACA recipients, and immigrant communities more generally, about whether the government is going to honor its promise when it grants someone deferred action.”