Latest news with #Colindres
France 24
11-07-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Honduran teen deported by US feels like foreigner in native country
Now, like many other young deportees who emigrated to the United States as children, he is struggling to adapt to life in a homeland that feels foreign to him. The 19-year-old's life changed dramatically on June 4, when he was arrested while attending an appointment with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Cincinnati, Ohio. He had never been in trouble with the law before. After two weeks in prison, the teenager was put on a charter flight with other deportees and sent to Honduras. Colindres had left his home country in 2014 with his mother and sister to escape a life of poverty, entering the United States as undocumented immigrants. Since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, thousands of young migrants have been deported to the countries where they were born, but which they barely know. Washington has deported 11,823 Hondurans this year, according to official figures from the Central American nation. Of those sent back, 2,846 were under the age of 20. From Cincinnati to Guapinol On the same day Colindres was detained, ICE notified his mother Ada Bell Baquedano and his 16-year-old sister Alison that they had a month to leave the United States. For years, the family had tried to obtain asylum or legal residency there, but without success. They now live in a small metal-roofed house belonging to Colindres's grandmother in Guapinol, a hot and dusty village in the municipality of Marcovia, located in one of the poorest areas of Honduras. Colindres has no friends in the country where he was born. "I don't know anyone, I don't know what it's like here," he told AFP at an airport near the capital Tegucigalpa while waiting for his mother and sister, who returned to Honduras from the United States voluntarily. 'I miss everything' In the United States, Colindres's family lived in a two-story apartment in Cheviot, a suburb of Cincinnati. His mother cleaned houses and sold food while Colindres attended a public high school, where he was a keen soccer player. "It's hard to adapt (to Honduras) because I'm not used to it, but I have to," Colindres said. "I miss everything about there," he said, adding that he had planned to go to university to study psychology and play soccer, hoping to become a professional athlete. Starting again In the United States, Colindres had a promising future, his mother said. "He always had support from his coach and his soccer team," the 38-year-old told AFP. "They were helping him to find a university. And they were also helping him coach children. Those people were a key part of Emerson's life," Baquedano said. "What harm can a kid who plays soccer, attends church and goes to school do to a country?" Before emigrating to the United States, Baquedano sold bread on the street, but she is not yet sure how she will earn a living in Honduras this time. "Right now, I'm trying to come to terms with what happened, then start making a new life here," she said. © 2025 AFP
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US deports teen soccer star to Honduras days after his high school graduation
A teenage student and soccer stand-out was arrested by immigration authorities four days after his high school graduation ceremony in Ohio earlier this month, and deported to Honduras this week, his family has said. Emerson Colindres, 19, had no criminal record and was attending a regularly scheduled appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Cincinnati when he was detained on 4 June, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. His parents told the newspaper he was deported on Wednesday to a country he has not lived in since he was eight years old. 'He's never done anything to anybody, he hasn't committed any type of crime and he's always done things the right way,' his mother, Ada Bell Baquedano-Amador, told the outlet. 'How is my son going to make it over there? He doesn't know anything and the country where we come from is very insecure.' Teachers and teammates from his soccer team at Gilbert A Dater high school, where Colindres was a standout athlete, joined protests at the Butler county jail, where he was detained until he was moved to another Ice facility in Louisiana this week. Bryan Williams, coach at the Cincy Galaxy soccer club where Colindres also played, told NBC News: 'Sadly, he's not the only one. I think there are a lot of Emersons in the same situation right now. 'They're all the same story, someone who was here doing everything they were asked, trying to make a better life for themselves and their family.' High school and college students have increasingly found themselves in the crosshairs of Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Administration officials insist that only criminals and those with adjudicated final orders of removal are being targeted. Recent data shows a surge in people with no criminal history being targeted. Being in the US without legal status is a civil offense, not a crime. Related: Ice arrests of migrants with no criminal history surging under Trump However, a judge had issued a final removal order for Colindres and his family in 2023 after their application for asylum was denied, nine years after they entered the country without documentation. 'If you are in the country illegally and a judge has ordered you to be removed, that is precisely what will happen,' Tricia McLaughlin, homeland security department assistant secretary of public affairs, told NBC in a statement. Raids by Ice agents have escalated as administration officials have called for a minimum of 3,000 immigration arrests daily.
NBC News
19-06-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
A teen with no criminal background was deported by ICE, leaving his community aghast
For 19-year-old Emerson Colindres, it was supposed to be a routine check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It turned out to be a trap. He never returned home. Colindres, who came to the United States with his family more than a decade ago to escape the violence in their native Honduras, was detained by ICE on June 4, just days after the talented student and soccer player graduated high school in Cincinnati. Colindres, whose teammates said was one of the greatest players they met on the field, dreamed of continuing his sports career and hoped to attend a university. He did not have a criminal record, according to the Butler County Sheriff's Office. In the span of two weeks, Colindres went from celebrating his graduation to being detained by ICE to then being deported to a country where he has not lived since he was 8 years old. He is not the only law-abiding high school student who has been targeted by ICE. Immigration enforcement around the country has also swept up students in New York City, as well as in Milford, Massachusetts. 'Sadly, he's not the only one. I think there are a lot of Emersons in the same situation right now,' Bryan Williams, Colindres' coach at the Cincy Galaxy soccer club, said ahead of the young man's deportation. 'They're all the same story, someone who was here doing everything they were asked, trying to make a better life for themselves and their family, and now they're being detained somewhere.' While President Donald Trump has long promised to enact mass deportations, the administration initially said it would focus on criminals and bad actors who were in the country illegally. But as pressure to increase deportations has grown, young people without criminal records — including teens like Colindres who have lived in the U.S. since they were children — have been caught up in immigration enforcement. Colindres' arrest did not go unnoticed. Protests erupted in the Cincinnati area and outside the detention center in Butler County, Ohio, where Colindres was, for a time, being held. His coach, teachers, classmates and teammates — all called for the release of a beloved teenager who they said was unfairly ripped away from their tight-knit community. On Wednesday, Colindres was deported. 'It's devastating,' Johanna Froelicher, a middle school teacher who had Colindres as a student, told NBC News. 'But we aren't giving up on him.' Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, told NBC News 'we are delivering on President Trump's and the American people's mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens to make America safe.' McLaughlin said that during the first 100 days of Trump's presidency, 75% of immigrants arrested had convictions or pending charges. According to reporting from Reuters, the top charges making up 39% of that total were traffic offenses or immigration-related crimes. A senior spokesperson with the Department of Homeland Security told NBC News that immigrants arrested during routine check-ins, 'had executable final orders of removal by an immigration judge and had not complied with that order. If you are in the country illegally and a judge has ordered you to be removed, that is precisely what will happen.' After he was arrested, Colindres was spirited out to the Butler County jail, where Sheriff Richard Jones said about 450 immigrant detainees were being held after the sheriff's office agreed to partner with the Trump administration. On June 17, Colindres was taken from the jail and 'none of us, including his family or legal team, have been informed where he was taken,' Froelicher said ahead of his deportation. Jones said that Colindres never had any legal issues, and that he was given due process on his ability to stay in the U.S. through his immigration case. 'He had a court order from a judge to be deported, and he was deported,' he said. Williams said he was shocked by the turn of events. 'These are your friends and neighbors,' Williams said. 'They make your community what it is, and then one day they're just gone.' Colindres arrived in the U.S. in 2014 with his mother and sister at a time when many Central American families were fleeing gang violence and extreme poverty in their home countries. 'In Honduras, families have no security,' Colindres' mother, Ada Bell Baquedano Amador, said in Spanish. 'It's a very complicated situation.' Seemingly safe in the U.S., her family filed for asylum and settled in Cincinnati. And while they waited for their immigration case to play out, they started rebuilding their lives. Colindres was a gifted student and 'and did amazing academically,' said Froelicher, the middle school teacher who is now a family friend and supporter. When he wasn't hitting the books, Colindres was on the soccer pitch and quickly became a star player at a local soccer club. 'He's continued to be beloved by anyone who came in contact with him,' Froelicher said. Baquedano Amador said she is so grateful to have Colindres as her son. 'As a mom, sometimes I don't even have words for how much I thank God for Emerson,' she said. 'I'm so proud of him.' The family's hopes for a future in the U.S. took a hit after an immigration judge denied their asylum application and in 2023 they were given a final order of removal, Baquedano Amador said. During the Biden administration, immigration officials were ordered to exercise discretion on a case-by-case basis and to prioritize deportation for immigrants with criminal convictions who were a threat to national or public safety. So instead of immediate deportation, Baquedano Amador was given an ankle monitor and ordered to check in with ICE. But after Trump took office in January, ICE began targeting immigrants with and without criminal histories, as well as those who entered the country legally through Biden-era program s and those with pending asylum cases. When Colindres came of age, he too was given a schedule to check in with ICE and told he too would soon have to don an ankle monitor, his mother said. Williams said to boost the morale of his star player, he started going with Colindres to his ICE check-in appointments. And June 4, he also brought along his wife and son. But Colindres was not allowed to return home that day, in a pattern seen around the nation of immigrants showing up for what were once routine appointments and being taken into ICE custody for deportation. 'They took him out of the building in handcuffs,' Williams said. 'My son got to see him and give him a hug and tell him he loved him. But one of his good friends was in handcuffs being taken away and he doesn't know if he's ever going to see him again.' McLaughlin said in a statement that Colindres had a final order of removal from 2023 and that 'if you are in the country illegally and a judge has ordered you to be removed, that is precisely what will happen.' Froelicher said Colindres and his family are not the kind of migrants the Trump administration should be targeting. 'He and his family have literally done every single thing that they have been asked,' Froelicher said. 'They have complied with everything because they're just such good people. They truly want to be here and they wanted to do things the right way.' 'This is not just about policy,' Froelicher added. 'This is about human lives. These are real people with dreams and aspirations.' Colindres' soccer teammates said they can't picture celebrating their graduations without him. 'He is one of my closest friends,' said 18-year-old Alejandro Pepole, who said he has known Colindres for about 10 years. 'Emerson has always been a very funny guy. I never saw him in a bad mood. Every time we hung out on or off the field, he was always uplifting people's moods and he always had a smile on his face. He was overall just a very good person and what he's going through right now just isn't right.' Pepole said Colindres was an inspiration on the soccer field. Colindres, he said, 'can just do everything as a player. He wins us games. He's like the main goal scorer. He controls the game. And he's just an overall good team leader as well.' And Colindres was ambitious, his friends said. 'He had a dream to play at the next level in soccer and eventually play professionally,' Preston Robinson, 18, said. 'You could tell by the amount of effort he put in and how good he was, it was definitely possible for him. We were trying to help him get to the next level for soccer, no matter what it took.' Robinson said he was shocked when Colindres was arrested. 'He was going there expecting to just have a check-in, like he was supposed to be doing, and then they took him away,' he said. 'It was almost like he got trapped, which just doesn't seem fair.'
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Yahoo
Emerson Colindres, detained soccer star, is scared for his future, fellow ICE inmates
CHEVIOT, Ohio ‒ About a week ago, Emerson Colindres was thinking about applying for college. Now he fears being deported to Honduras, a country he left when he was just 8 years old and barely remembers. "I'm scared because I don't know what's going to happen, not to me or anybody here," he told The Enquirer by phone from jail after calling his mom. Colindres, who is 19 years old, lived with his mom and 16-year-old sister in a duplex in Cheviot, a Cincinnati suburb. Now, he's sleeping in a bunk bed in a housing block with other ICE inmates at the Butler County Jail in Southwest Ohio, which has a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It's been eight days. He hasn't eaten much besides Cup Noodles soup. He's a picky eater, he said. And he's calling his mom a lot. It's the only thing that's helped him feel better. "At first I was struggling a lot. I've been calling my mom a lot. Calling her has helped," he said. "It's been hard. I can't see her. I've never not seen her – not even on FaceTime, nothing like that ‒ for so long. So, it's been hard, and the mental aspect of it has been pretty hard." Colindres, whose full name is Emerson Colindres Baquedano, was arrested by ICE on June 4, jail records show. His mom, Ada Bell Baquedano Amador, has been able to speak to him by phone, but she hasn't visited him. She's afraid to go to the jail because she and her daughter also lack legal immigration status. ICE officials told Baquedano Amador she and her daughter have 30 days to leave the country. In the days since Colindres' arrest, hundreds of people in Greater Cincinnati have protested the standout soccer player's detention. He's heard about the protests and said other ICE detainees at the jail have, too. "I'm really grateful," he said. "I know it's for me, but it's not just for me. A lot of people here are in the same situation. Some are in worse ones. "They're feeling sad because they've been separated from their babies, their wives, their families. So, they're feeling sad," he said. "That's what they tell me; that's what I see in people's faces." "It helps me mentally," Colindres said, "knowing there are people out there who care about me." Colindres was scheduled to meet with ICE agents at their suburban Cincinnati office in Blue Ash last week to get a GPS ankle monitor, an alternative to detention that ICE uses to track immigrants. "We showed up. They put my mom and me in a room," he recalled. "There were ICE officers there, and they said, 'We've got to take you right now.' Not 30 days to get out of the country or anything ‒ right now." In her living room, surrounded by photos and posters of her son, Baquedano Amador said she felt that ICE agents "deceived" him. "He told me, 'Mom, don't leave me here. I don't want to be locked up,'" she told The Enquirer tearfully in Spanish. "No one, especially as a mom, can imagine seeing your child go to a place where people that cause harm deserve to be," she said. Colindres has no criminal record. When he was arrested during his ICE check-in, he became part of a national trend that ramped up after the Trump Administration raised daily arrest quotas for ICE. "When people go for their check-ins, they're being arrested. When people go to their court hearings, they're being arrested," said Cincinnati immigration attorney Nazly Mamedova. "Sometimes ICE is waiting for you, even if your case has not been completed yet, they're waiting for you behind the court doors." Mamedova said there have been many arrests at the ICE office in Blue Ash. ICE did not respond to The Enquirer's emailed questions about arrests at the office. Colindres' mom said his cellmate was also arrested at the office that day. He was called there to have his ankle monitor removed. 'I ask for (Butler County) Sheriff Richard Jones to be a little more pious with immigrants," Baquedano Amador said. "Even for criminals, the treatment should be better, as well as the jail's conditions.' Fleeing persecution from gangs in Honduras, Colindres' mom applied for asylum when she arrived in the United States with her two small children in 2014. A judge denied her application. Asylum seekers must prove their government is persecuting them or that they're being persecuted by someone who the government is unable or unwilling to stop. If an application is denied, asylum seekers can appeal that decision, and those appeals can take several years. Baquedano Amador's appeals were unsuccessful. The family of three was given a final order of removal in August 2023, she said, which meant they were considered deportable by ICE. But before President Donald Trump entered office, Colindres would have been a low-priority case to ICE because he has no criminal record. That's changed since Trump promised to deport millions of people and his administration set a 3,000 daily arrest goal for ICE agents. "In the last administration, they (ICE) were more going after people with criminal records and people who posed a danger to the community," Mamedova said. "With this administration, they're no longer prioritizing. They're just going after everyone." While his mom and sister have been given 30 days to leave the United States, it's unclear when Colindres could be deported. Before his arrest, Bryan Williams, Colindres' coach on the Cincy Galaxy soccer club, was helping him get offers to play soccer at colleges. Since then, he said, "the focus has shifted." But even with Colindres in jail, Williams is still working to get him college soccer offers. "If he gets offers to go to school and play soccer, we hope that means he'll be able to live and remain here," he said. "He's got potential to do big things in soccer. We want to take advantage of that." The weekend after his arrest, some of Colindres' Cincy Galaxy teammates talked to him on the phone. Preston Robinson, his teammate since 2019, told Colindres about the NBA Finals, since he hadn't been able to watch it. "We would always goof around," Robinson, 18, said about his friend. "I'm not very outgoing myself, but he talks to everyone, and he talked to me." On June 8, after talking to Colindres on the phone, Robinson and other teammates joined a protest for him in front of the Butler County jail. "He was just expecting to go to a check-in," Robison said. "And then he was taken away." This story was updated to add a video. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio man arrested at routine ICE check-in part of national trend
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
High school graduate facing ICE deportation weeks after earning his diploma: ‘I was just living my life'
An Ohio high school graduate is facing deportation to Honduras by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) just weeks after earning his diploma. Emerson Colindres, 19, arrived in the United States with his family as an eight-year-old in 2014 but was detained during a routine check-in at an ICE facility in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash on Wednesday June 4, according to members of the community who have begun campaigning for his release. The Colindres family had sought asylum in the U.S., requesting protection from extortion by Honduran criminal gangs, only for their case to be rejected, their appeal denied and a final removal order issued in 2023. Since then, they have participated in ICE's Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP, a parole-like alternative to incarceration) without ever being overtly ordered to leave the country. Bryan Williams, the teen's soccer coach at local team Cincy Galaxy, told a local affiliate of ABC News that the three ICE agents who picked Colindres up had clearly been waiting for him. 'They informed us that they were detaining and deporting Emerson only,' he said. 'No explanation was given.' 'Emerson's one of the best kids I've ever met,' Williams continued. 'We don't know what we can do, but we're doing whatever we can.' Explaining the rationale behind the detention of the recent graduate from Gilbert A Dater High School, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement: 'Those arrested had executable final orders of removal by an immigration judge and had not complied with that order. 'If you are in the country illegally and a judge has ordered you to be removed, that is precisely what will happen.' The DHS also noted that ISAP 'exists to ensure compliance with release conditions.' On Sunday, Colindres's teammates gathered outside the Butler County Jail in Hamilton where he is being held wearing 'Free Emerson' T-shirts and spoke to him by phone for 20 minutes. 'I was just... living life, minding my own business,' Colindres told a local journalist on the same call. 'And now I'm here.' On the conditions in which he is being kept, he said: 'It's just awful. We only go out once a day – sometimes twice. [It's] not a life someone who didn't do anything should be living.' Teammate Joshua Williams appealed for his friend's release saying: 'He didn't do anything wrong. And they just took him away. 'I was the last person who saw him, I got to hug him goodbye. I wish I hugged him longer. Because I didn't know that would be the last time I was going to see him.' Preston Robinson, another teammate, said: 'It's not like he had a say in whether he could or couldn't come. 'I just wanted to be here to show that I support him. Support anybody that's going through this, because it's just not fair.' Shortly afterwards, at the same protest event, Ada Bell Baquedano-Amador, Colindres's mother, addressed President Donald Trump, whose administration is now enforcing its long-threatened illegal immigration crackdown with increasing aggression. 'Please, Mr Trump – because I'm talking directly to you – have pity on us,' she said in Spanish. 'Have compassion.' Baquedano-Amador has since told The Cincinnati Enquirer that she too has been given 30 days to self-deport to Honduras in the wake of her son's arrest. 'You can't imagine what I'm feeling,' she said. 'How is my son going to make it over there? He doesn't know anything and the country where we come from is very insecure... It's not just.'
