Traumatized and troubled, Jakadrien made her way to Houston, where she was arrested for theft. She gave officers a fake name — a name that coincidentally was the same as a Colombian illegal immigrant with a standing arrest warrant.
Despite the fact that Jakadrien speaks no Spanish, and she was fingerprinted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) while in their custody, the girl was mistakenly deported to Columbia in April of 2011.
The child’s grandmother, Lorene Turner, had been searching for her granddaughter since she left home, staying up into the early morning hours to search Facebook for any clue of Jakadrien’s wherabouts.
Turner credits messages on the social network for helping her locate Jakadrien, who had been working as a domestic in the South American country. Colombian officials took Jakadrien into custody where she has been waiting for a month in detention.
It has also been discovered that the teen is pregnant.
The Colombian government has refused to release the girl to her family in the United States.
In a statement, ICE Director of Public Affairs Brian Hale said of the case:
“ICE takes these allegations very seriously. At the direction of [the Department of Homeland Security], ICE is fully and immediately investigating this matter in order to expeditiously determine the facts of this case.”
Lorene Turner remains hopeful that her granddaughter will be returned home. “I feel like she will come home. I just need help. And I need prayer,” she told news reporters.
There must be more to this story than authorities are telling. A pregnant child is in detention in a foreign country and can’t be released to her U.S. family? Stay tuned …
