A Durango father and his two children arrested by federal immigration agents who thought they were someone else have agreed to leave the United States because of the trauma they have experienced in detention, advocates said Wednesday night.
Fernando Jaramillo-Solano and his 12- and 15-year-old children were on their way to school the morning of Oct. 27 when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested them. A senior ICE official later testified in Denver court that agents thought Jaramillo-Solano, who is Colombian, was a different person but arrested him and his children anyway.
The family, including Jaramillo-Solano’s wife, Estella Patiño, who was not detained, have lived in Colorado with a pending asylum case after fleeing Colombia because Patiño was tortured and her previous husband assassinated.
Jaramillo-Solano and the two children were transferred to a federal detention center in Dilley, Texas, and the “mental, physical, and emotional trauma they have endured has left them unable to continue fighting their case,” advocates with Compañeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center said Wednesday night.
During the arrest, the 12-year-old girl was initially separated from her father and brother and inappropriately touched by an ICE agent, Patiño said at a Durango City Council meeting Tuesday night.
When her brother noticed and told them to stop, agents beat him, Patiño said.
“(Patiño’s) testimony highlighted the profound trauma the family has endured while in federal custody and reinforced the urgent need for oversight, transparency, and child-safety protections within all immigration enforcement agencies,” Compañeros officials said in a news release.
Officials with ICE’s Denver field office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.
Jaramillo-Solano was still in ICE custody in Texas as of Wednesday night, according to the agency’s detainee locator.
In a statement Wednesday night, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper said federal officials have refused to release the family from ICE custody.
“They forced a father and his 15- and 12-year-old kids to make an impossible choice: leave their wife and mother behind and return to a country where they don’t feel safe; or remain indefinitely isolated in detention, separated from her,” Hickenlooper said.
A Douglas County teacher and her family who were arrested in October during a routine immigration appointment also voluntarily left the country earlier this month.
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