Pregnant mom is given 45 days to self-deport to El Salvador after ICE agents detained her moments after dropping her American-born daughter off at a Philadelphia pre-school
- Verónica Carmen Lara-Márquez was informed by ICE that she must voluntarily leave the United States and return to El Salvador in 45 days
- Lara-Márquez has to purchase a one-way ticket without any layover stops and leave the United States by April 4
- The pregnant woman was detained outside a Philadelphia school by the federal immigration agents after dropping off her American-born daughter February 11
- The 32-year-old woman is three months pregnant and entered the U.S. on an asylum petition in 2011
- A deportation order was issued in 2012 after she failed to show up for a hearing
An undocumented married pregnant mother has been ordered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to self-deport to El Salvador in 45 days.
The ruling comes after ICE agents detained Verónica Carmen Lara-Márquez outside a Philadelphia elementary school after dropping off her four-year-old American-born daughter February 11.
The Salvadoran woman told the Philadelphia Inquirer that while meeting February 20 with a case coordinator from an independent agency that monitors migrants for ICE, the worker informed her that the federal immigration department had instructed her to voluntarily return to her native country by April.
The 32-year-old Lara-Márquez provided a note that indicates she must purchase a one-way ticket with no layover stops to the Central American nation and must appear at an immigration hearing March 20.
ICE also notified her that she must leave the United States by April 4.
Verónica Carmen Lara-Márquez, who is three months pregnant, has been notified by ICE that she has 45 days to voluntarily return to El Salvador. A deportation order was processed in 2012 after she missed an immigration hearing in Virginia a year after entering the United States on an asylum petition
Verónica Carmen Lara-Márquez, who was briefly detained February 11 by ICE agents outside her four-year-old American-born daughter’s school in Philadelphia, showed proof that she is a citizen of El Salvador and not Honduras, as indicated by ICE in official documents
Lara-Márquez hopes her attorney, Ricky Palladino, can convince ICE to grant her an extension and review her case after immigration officials initially identified her as a native of Honduras. Despite the error, ICE said the fingerprints in the agency’s database system confirmed Lara-Márquez’s identity.
“The only thing she could do now to stay here is get her removal proceedings reopened,’ Palladino said.
The distraught mother, who is three months pregnant, questioned ICE’s decision to enforce the deportation order, handed down by a judge in 2012 after she failed to show up for a hearing.
‘We do not get into trouble,’ Lara-Márquez told Telemundo 62. ‘There is a lot of crime, which is getting worse day by day.’
Lara-Márquez was caught off guard and thought she was going to be kidnapped when she was approached by two plainclothes agents, who addressed her by her middle name and told her to step to the side because they wanted to talk to her outside Eliza B. Kirkbride Elementary.
ICE officers eventually released her at a bus stop because of her pregnancy.
Since then, Lara-Márquez has noticed a change in her daughter’s mood.
‘She is very sad because they noticed everything that was happening at the school,’ he said.
The Salvadoran woman entered the United States on an asylum petition in 2011 and settled in Virginia.
She then moved to Philadelphia the following year and met the father of her two children, but failed to show up for her immigration hearings.
The brief detention of a Salvadoran migrant who was dropping off her daughter at a school in Philadelphia has prompted school officials to reach out to its staff on how to deal with ICE agents