Carla Medina was delivering a DoorDash order to Buckley Space Force Base last year when she was detained by federal immigration officials. Six months later, the Honduran mother of two is still sitting in the detention facility in Aurora.
Her husband and children are on edge, and so is Medina. Although her entire family is moving through the legal process to seek asylum in the United States, Medina is the only one in confinement — and she has unanswered questions about why she’s there.
“I’ve never been in a prison,” Medina said. “I’ve never had this experience.”
The Denver Post interviewed Medina, 34, through a Spanish translator in late April while she was in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The newspaper also spoke with her husband, Pablo, who is caring for their two children — a 12-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son — as they hope for their mother’s return. He declined to be identified using his last name, citing a fear of his own detainment.
Pablo says that’s why he hasn’t visited Medina in-person at the ICE facility since she was picked up on Oct. 23. Instead, their contact has been limited to phone calls.
“If they detain me, the kids stay alone — so I don’t go,” Pablo, 29, said in Spanish.
Medina’s detention came near the end of President Joe Biden’s administration — months before Colorado found itself in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration, which has included raids at apartment buildings in Aurora and Denver in February and at an underground nightclub in Colorado Springs last weekend.
But as Medina sits inside the ICE facility awaiting her asylum hearing early this month, her case is comparable to the circumstances faced by several other detainees held there. At least two have filed petitions for writs of habeas corpus, or requests to determine the validity of their detentions, The Post reported recently. One is a “stateless” man who has been held for over seven months and the other is a transgender woman from Central America who has been detained for about 16 months.
They say they’ve been provided no further information about their removals, and their attorneys argue that the federal agency has exceeded the set time limit to carry out their deportations.
ICE did not respond to multiple inquiries by The Post asking why Medina was detained, if she has a deportation order and why she’s been held at the facility for over six months. Medina’s attorney for her asylum case, Andrew Younkins, declined to comment.
Andrea Loya, the executive director of immigration-focused organization Casa de Paz, is trying to support Medina and her family. Loya’s group works with detained immigrants directly, visiting them at the ICE detention center in Aurora and offering assistance upon their release.
“It is heartbreaking to work with a family when their mom should be free,” Loya said. “Kids should not have to go through this for politics.”
According to public case information provided by the Executive Office for Immigration Review, Medina’s immigration docket dates back to Oct. 26, 2023, and her asylum court case is still pending. ICE’s online portal says information about Medina is currently unavailable.
At the detention center, Medina is classified as a lower-level safety concern, Loya said.
Based on the people and circumstances that Loya’s encountered through Casa de Paz, she says she believes Medina is still being detained partly because she has not been able to hire an attorney specifically to challenge her detention. Though Younkins is representing Medina in her upcoming asylum case, Loya said the detainee also needs someone “to fight (for) her release” — but that costs money that her family doesn’t have.
Arrested at Buckley Space Force Base
Almost two years ago, the Honduran family of four arrived in the United States. At the southern border, they used CBP One, a mobile app offered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, to schedule an appointment at a port of entry to seek asylum.
The Trump administration removed that feature from the app when Trump took office on Jan. 20 and canceled all appointments, according to a news release. Instead, the app — now called CBP Home — includes a feature that lets immigrants without legal status choose to self-deport.
Medina said her husband of five years was escaping political persecution in their Central American country, while she feared domestic violence and threats made by her ex-partner. The couple said they also fled gang violence.
Human Rights Watch referred to Honduras as “one of the most violent countries in the world” in its 2024 world report, with Latin America’s highest rate of femicide — the gender-based murder of women — and its second-highest homicide rate.
Medina said she had secured her work permit before she was detained. The day she was taken into ICE custody, Medina said she was picking up and dropping off orders on DoorDash, a food delivery service. The app directed her to bring an order to Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora, she said.
At the entrance to the military base, Medina said security officers asked her questions, but she didn’t understand English. So she said she showed them the DoorDash app to indicate that she was delivering an order to that address.
The security officers found someone who spoke Spanish, she said, and he told her they would investigate what’s going on. She parked the car, and security officers reviewed her documents, Medina said. Then, they confiscated her car keys and inspected the vehicle, assuring her that the process was routine, Medina said.
During her conversation, two vehicles — a Ford Mustang and a patrol car — pulled up with ICE officers inside, Medina said. At this point, she remembers crying, wracked with nerves.
She said she recalled immigration officers telling her that either she or her husband had a deportation order. To date, she still has not seen the removal order, Medina said.
Given that her family entered the country by using CBP One, she wasn’t sure how they could have deportation orders, she said.
When The Post asked Pablo if he knew why his wife was detained, he responded: “The truth is, we still don’t know what the reason was.” He said officers indicated that it occurred because she was in a restricted area.
Buckley’s public affairs team directed questions about the incident to ICE.
While talking to the immigration officers, Medina remembered, she initially worried about making sure her children got home that day and about how she would communicate with her husband.
She said she was handcuffed and put in the back of the patrol car and then brought to the Aurora detention center, which is run by the GEO Group, a private contractor.
Waiting for her asylum court date
Since that day in late October, Medina said she’s pressed ICE officers for more information about her circumstances, and she said she’s been told that she doesn’t have the right to be in the U.S.
When asked about the conditions in the ICE facility, Medina let out a sigh. She said there’s no privacy because two dozen people are confined to one room, and they don’t get to go outdoors for fresh air.
“It’s degrading,” Medina said.
Pablo said Medina initially worked with a paralegal, but he thought that person’s work only harmed her case. With the help of donations from a GoFundMe campaign, the family hired Younkins, whom they’re relying upon for Medina’s upcoming asylum hearing. The case is scheduled to go to immigration court on Thursday.
Medina said she has requested that an immigration bond be set so that she can be released. But she said an immigration judge deemed her ineligible because of her decision to enter the U.S. through the CBP One app.
Pablo decried her detention as unjust because the entire family was in the asylum process and they still don’t know why Medina was arrested.
“It’s been very difficult,” he said. “It’s been very tiring.”
After Medina was detained, Pablo said he felt forced to quit his job at a warehouse as “my work gave me the choice between continuing to work with them or dedicating myself to the family.” He has his work permit, and his asylum court date is scheduled for next year. His children’s court date is set for December.
Now, Pablo makes money driving Uber when he’s not caring for his children at their home in Aurora. He said the family misses Medina, and the couple’s young son is especially pained by her absence.
Medina said she’s cried every day since her detainment. In spite of the exhaustion and stress, she said she’s trying to remain calm. Medina hopes she’s granted asylum and that she can watch her children be educated and lead fulfilling lives in the United States, she said.
“I want to go back and see my kids, my husband,” she said.
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