“She tried to become legal and it just became a nightmare:” A DACA recipient’s deportation and her family’s search to find her in Mexico

On Oct. 22, Anahi Jaquez Estrada’s mother received a dreaded phone call.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the Aurora detention facility were deporting her daughter to Mexico, a country Jaquez Estrada had been to only once in 24 years.

The phone call didn’t come from ICE or even from Jaquez Estrada’s attorney. It was from the 27-year-old’s cellmate and friend at the ICE detention facility in Aurora where she had been detained for more than a year. The friend had caught a glimpse of Jaquez Estrada in a deportation line on the afternoon of Oct. 22. She didn’t know where Jaquez Estrada was going or when, but she wanted her friend’s family to know.

Norma Estrada Jaquez’s heart sank. She called her daughter’s husband, who was at work.

Jose Trujillo Perez didn’t hesitate to leave his worksite in Flagler. He jumped in his car, stopped briefly in Wiggins where his wife’s family lives to pick up clothes and other supplies, and then started the 10-hour trek to Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua, Mexico.

He wasn’t sure if he would even find his wife there. ICE could have sent her to Tijuana. But the family and their lawyer couldn’t get ICE to confirm anything. Jaquez Estrada didn’t have a phone, belongings or money with her.

Trujillo Perez knew, no matter where ICE sent his wife, she would be in danger. Juárez was the closer city.

“I’m just speechless, “ Trujillo Perez told The Denver Post as he drove. “I just want to find my wife and see if she’s OK.”

Family separations at the U.S./Mexico border have triggered increased scrutiny from human rights groups across the country, but the separations also occur daily as ICE officers detain and deport parents, separating them from their children, some of whom are Americans. That was the case for Jaquez Estrada, who was brought to the United States as a 3-year-old and now has a U.S.-born daughter.

Critics say the federal immigration policies destroy families, creating lasting psychological — and even physical effects — on children and their parents.

ICE agents say they’re just enforcing the laws that Congress has created. John Fabbricatore, ICE’s acting field office director for enforcement and removal operations in Denver, told reporters last month that families could take their children with them if they didn’t want to be separated.

Jaquez Estrada’s case exemplifies the complexity of the U.S. immigration system and how tenuous of a line exists for immigrants who are trying to stay in the country. Jaquez Estrada was a recipient of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that allowed people brought to the United States illegally as children to have a legal presence. But she jeopardized it when she pleaded guilty to insurance fraud.

At the same time that Jaquez Estrada was going through deportation proceedings, her green card application was being processed, her attorney Mark Scabavea said. She had a judge’s order that would have prevented her deportation but the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals dropped it even though her lawyer said the government still was considering her green card application.

The number of people deported from the ICE facility in Aurora changes each week and is dependent on a number of factors, said Alethea Smock, ICE spokeswoman for the Denver field office. However, ICE officials said they could not provide specific numbers.

ICE does not inform family members when a detainee is getting deported or even immediately after the person has been removed because of “operational security reasons,” Smock said. Between March and June of this year, it took an average of 27.5 days after a detainee received a judge’s final removal order to deport someone from the Aurora facility, she said.

Losing legal status

The deportation saga began when Jaquez Estrada lost her DACA status in 2018 after she pleaded guilty in Adams County Court to misdemeanor insurance fraud and felony insurance fraud. Under the agreement, the felony charge would be cleared in 2020 if she complied with the terms of the agreement, leaving only a misdemeanor on her permanent criminal record.

The case was related to her work at an insurance company where a client asked Jaquez Estrada to fudge a figure, Scabavea, who did not represent her in the criminal case, said. She got caught.

“She pleaded guilty because the offer was for a misdemeanor,” he said. “She had no idea that it had immigration consequences.”

A misdemeanor conviction does not automatically result in a DACA recipient losing their status, said Tania Valdez, a fellow at the Immigration Law & Policy Clinic at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

However, those convicted of felonies, multiple misdemeanors or a “significant misdemeanor” are at risk of losing DACA status, Valdez said.

The felony conviction still shows up on Jaquez Estrada’s record, and ICE deports people for those.

“She was convicted Feb. 21, 2018, in the Adams County (Colorado) Court for felony insurance fraud — for U.S. immigration purposes, a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT),” Smock wrote in a statement. “Due to her CIMT conviction, her detention was mandatory; she remained in ICE custody from April 4, 2018, until her removal.”

In the spring of 2018, when Jaquez Estrada was checking in with her state probation officer, ICE officers showed up and arrested her. Deportation proceedings were initiated but she was allowed to be free on bond, according to the ACLU, which has been tracking her case.

Soon after, an ICE officer asked her to return to the field office to fix something on her bond paperwork. Jaquez Estrada said she was assured she would not be detained again. But when she showed up, the ICE officer put her back in detention, the ACLU said.

ICE wouldn’t release her on bond a second time, Scabavea said.

When Scabavea got involved, he helped Jaquez Estrada apply for a green card through her husband, a U.S. citizen. Jaquez Estrada also has an 8-year-old daughter Yasailie Saucedo, who is an American, a sister who has been naturalized and parents who are legal residents.

The lawyer also applied for DACA renewal and appealed her deportation order.

None of that prevented her deportation.

A wake-up call

Alma Mota, Jaquez Estrada’s older sister, along with their parents, is taking care of Yasailie. The family was shocked at her sister’s arrest and then deportation, she said.

“People assume if you came here illegally, you should be punished,” Mota said. “It wasn’t her fault. Our parents were doing this to give us a better life.”

Jaquez Estrada worked as a supervisor at a beef processing plant in Fort Morgan, paid taxes and worked to contribute to society, never relying on government assistance, Mota said. In high school, Jaquez Estrada was elected president of her senior class, played sports and graduated with honors.

“The immigration system that we’re in, I think, is very hard to understand,” Mota said. “She tried to become legal and it just became a nightmare for her, to be honest.”

On the morning Jaquez Estrada was deported, an ICE officer ordered her to get up at 3 a.m. Phones were shut down. She asked her friend to call her mom when the phones were turned back on.

Jaquez Estrada sat shackled in a cell for nine hours with three other women before she and others were placed on a bus to Denver International Airport, she said. From there, they took a plane to El Paso and then were shuttled on two more buses before arriving at the Mexican Consulate in Juárez, she said.

“It’s a culture shock. I felt like a deer in headlights,” Jaquez Estrada said. “You don’t know who might do something to you or who to even trust. I started walking and thinking, ‘Where do I go?’ The consulate closed at 9 and I had no means of communication after that.”

She wandered the streets, looking for anyone or anything familiar.

Meanwhile, her husband, Trujillo Perez, was desperately driving toward Juárez, hoping he had correctly guessed which Mexican city his wife would be in.

Searching Juárez

Hours into his drive, Trujillo Perez got a call from his mother-in-law. He’d chosen correctly.

Still, he didn’t know exactly where in Juárez he would find Jaquez Estrada. He had no way of contacting her. So, he kept driving. Even after arriving in Jaurez, he spent hours driving around, searching frantically.

The couple eventually reunited thanks to friends helping each other on both sides of the border.

Family friends in El Paso agreed to cross the border and search for their beloved daughter and sister. They connected, and then after five hours of circling the city, Trujillo Perez finally found them together in the downtown area.

“Oh man, I was so happy,” Trujillo Perez said of reuniting with his wife more than 15 hours after he’d left Colorado. “I was relieved. I felt this pain going away right at that second.”

The past year has been difficult for Trujillo Perez. After his wife was detained, his biggest supporter was no longer there for him and their daughter. His job working on wind turbines takes him across the state and region, but their daughter can’t be left alone.

“I have my ups and downs,” he said. “If I didn’t have the little one, I’d be struggling.”

Figuring out what to say to Yasailie has been a challenge, particularly when they visited Jaquez Estrada in detention.

Yasailie still doesn’t know exactly what happened to her mom, Mota said. She grew up with an absent father before her mom married Trujillo Perez. Now, her mom is gone. Yasailie, who was born with a cleft palate, has been diagnosed with depression and borderline bipolar disorder since her mother has been gone, Mota said.

“We’re still trying to figure out how to tell her,” Mota said. “She knows she’s in Mexico, but she can’t go live with her because it’s not safe for her.”

Finding a new home

For the past week, Trujillo Perez and Jaquez Estrada have been searching for a safe place for Jaquez Estrada to live in Mexico. Trujillo Perez wants to transfer his job to El Paso so they can be closer and he can cross the border to visit.

It’s hard to watch his wife cry in her sleep, he said.

Jaquez Estrada said she is anxious and has trouble eating and sleeping.

In an interview with The Denver Post, she struggled to describe her emotions but said she put her faith in God when she arrived in Juárez. She had to depend on others, unsure of whether they were trustworthy.

“I was very scared,” she said. “It was a very traumatic experience.”

She gets emotional when talking about her daughter and the rest of her family, repeatedly saying, “It’s just a lot.”

Jaquez Estrada wants to share her story though, hoping that it could help another family not be torn apart. The procedures need to change, she said.

Scabavea, her attorney, called ICE’s process vengeful, particularly because there was no threat of Jaquez Estrada fleeing before her immigration process was complete.

He doesn’t intend to give up on her case even though it could take at least a year before her green card paperwork is processed.

Until then, Jaquez Estrada and Trujillo Perez will face the challenges the deportation has brought the family.

“Now, we’re struggling to see what we’re going to do, how we’re going to get my baby girl to see me,” she said.