ICE Mistakenly Deports Missing Teen To Colombia

from the these-people-get-to-censor-the-internet? dept

Wow. We’ve discussed, repeatedly, the ridiculous situation in which the US government via the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) arm of the Department of Homeland Security has been seizing domains and censoring websites, such as the case of Dajaz1.com. As we’ve noted in the past, the details of that operation showed an organization that didn’t really understand what it was doing, and definitely seemed to believe in “shoot first, ask questions later.”

As many people have pointed out, why is “Immigration and Customs Enforcement” doing anything involving the internet or copyrights/trademarks online? So perhaps you could “excuse” their vast mistakes as them being out of their depth.

But what about the part of their mandate that they’re actually supposed to be experts in? You know, keeping people who don’t belong here out? Yeah, it appears they approach that with about the same level of detail awareness as when they deal with censoring blogs. In 2010, 14-year-old Jakadrien Turner ran away from home, “distraught over the loss of her grandfather and her parents’ divorce.” Her grandmother searched for her with no luck… until now. It seems that at some point in 2010 Jakadrien was arrested for shoplifting. She gave police a fake name… and that name apparently was the same as an illegal immigrant who was wanted in Colombia. And, that was enough to get the girl deported to Colombia last April. She remains there, currently detained by the Colombian government.

Apparently ICE took the girl’s fingerprints “but somehow didn’t confirm her identity and deported her to Colombia, where the Colombian government gave her a work card and released her.” They’ve since taken her back into custody, since it was discovered she wasn’t who they thought she was. ICE now says that they’re “fully and immediately investigating this matter in order to expeditiously determine the facts of this case.” Perhaps — and this is just a suggestion — ICE should start “fully and immediately investigating” stuff before they go around creating new and bigger problems…

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Comments on “ICE Mistakenly Deports Missing Teen To Colombia”

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102 Comments
Mike C. (profile) says:

Girl didn't help the situation thoough

While the end result is outrageous, I don’t think ICE is totally at fault here. The fake name the girl provided was for a 22 year old. At that point the police and everyone after was under the impression they were dealing with an adult criminal. If you’ve got an adult in custody, why wouldn’t you deport them?

Mike C. (profile) says:

Re: Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

“I don’t think ICE is totally at fault here.”

In other words, yeah, ICE screwed up, but the girls certainly didn’t help matters by lying in the first place. Her bad choice of name started the ball rolling and I’m guessing she didn’t do much to help reveal the truth until the process was well underway.

Bengie says:

Re: Re: Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

She was a minor, doesn’t matter if she lies. Plenty of prior cases of minors lying about their age and the adult will still be held responsible for not validating.

I’m not saying she shouldn’t take responsibility, I’m saying these ICE people shouldn’t get special treatment from the rest of us citizens.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

Are you fking serious? What, you think ICE gave her a list of names to choose from? How does a 14 y/o purposely and consciously pick the name of a criminal in another country? Then ICE sat her down and fully explained the situation to her huh, that she was wanted in Columbia and gave her a chance to change her story? Sounds really plausible.

You should be deported for being an idiot.

E. Zachary Knight (profile) says:

Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

Ummm because even as adults people share names?

I do a quick google search of my name and there is another Zachary Knight that works in web developer (the same fields as me) but he lives in Florida. If one of us commits a crime, should we both be potentially liable simply because we share a name? No.

Just because this girl gave an identity that matched a criminal’s on the surface, they should have been absolutely sure that she was that person before deporting her.

Mike C. (profile) says:

Re: Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

The major difference between you and your evil twin is that you have government issued ID and a “paper trail” that can be used to back up your story. When is the last time you saw a 14 year old with a utility bill or a drivers license?

To be honest, this smacks of the “quick to report” story of Nintendo and Sony pulling their support of SOPA from a few days ago. Everyone is so ready to believe that ICE is truly evil when we really don’t have all the facts. For all we know, the local police that did the initial lookup on the name are the ones that led ICE down the path of deportation:

Hey ICE, we’ve got a “Maria Gonzalez” in custody here and according to the computer she’s got a warrant out for her in Columbia. Can y’all come on down and take care of this for us. There are no prints or pictures on file so we added them from the girl in custody. KTHXBAI.

I’m just trying to point out that maybe we should hear some of the details before we lynch. Once the details are released, lynch away. Until then… maybe take a step back for a second and stop screaming “but, but, but… FOR THE CHILDREN!!!”

/father of a 14 y.o. boy who could pass for 20+
//seen the crap modern teenagers try
///apparently was a teenager myself once…

Anonymous Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

Paraphrased from I think Sherlock Holmes: “The key to a homicide investigation depends upon the correct identification of the corpse”.

Any law enforcement professional should be concerned about who they have in custody. Accepting what the “criminal” says at face value seems to be contradictory to their mission.

Anonymous Poster says:

Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

Cool “blame the victim” mentality, bro.

The girl had no way to know that the name she gave belonged to someone who was on an immigration watchlist. Why should she be at fault for ICE not recognizing that a fourteen-year-old girl is not a twenty-two-year-old criminal on their watchlist? Why should the girl be blamed for ICE not doing the follow-through and confirming the girl’s identity before deporting her to Colombia?

This was ICE incompetence; if the organization had followed through with confirming her identity before shipping her off to a foreign country intent on jailing her for crimes she didn’t commit, nobody would be reading about its incompetence in this situation.

ComputerAddict (profile) says:

Re: Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

Every 14 year old knows that it is ILLEGAL to lie to the police. It is not like they arbitrarily walked up to this girl and asked her name, she was caught stealing, lied to the police, and her lie got her in a heap more trouble. Stop acting like she’s a Saint. I gotta place at least 25% blame on the girl here.

About 50% blame on the Local cops who should have informed her she was being arrested for warrants out of Columbia, giving the girl opportunity to confess she lied about her name, contact her parents, etc. Local cops do their job… follow up end of story.

and finally about 25% on ICE for not verifying the information given to the LEO’s, but barring that ICE did what they were suppose to do. If you have a international criminal, you deport them back where they came from. Its not that complicated.

abc gum says:

Re: Re: Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

Not sure why excuses are being offered and percentage blame being allocated. She was caught shoplifting and yet they believed she gave her correct name … this is amazing. It’s like they think criminals would not give a false name. It is obviously 100% incompetence on the part of law enforcement.

Jeffrey Nonken (profile) says:

Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

At that point the police and everyone after was under the impression they were dealing with an adult criminal.

Right, and because they can believe anything she says, they’re both legally and morally released from having to investigate.

Oh, and as several others have pointed out, also because no two people could possibly have the same name.

I know a guy named Greg Schwartz who happens to live in the same town as another guy named Greg Schwartz. Fortunately they have different middle initials. Unfortunately the other guy is a bit shady. Our Greg Schwartz constantly gets mail for the other (including auto titles — the other guy runs a junkyard), has been served with various legal notices, and I think even arrested once, for things that had nothing to do with him. He has several times had to go to court to prove who he is. Simply based on a common name.

But hey, it’s OK. This bunch of bozos is let off the hook because she gave them a fake name, and they’re so stupid they just assumed she was an adult illegal immigrant from Columbia with a Spanish accent. Not a problem, she shouldn’t have been there in the first place, she was asking for it! They’re all asking for it, all the time!

I think we should deport ALL accused shoplifters.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

Lets be clear here, if I was a terrorist a real one then all I need to do is to lie about my real name and stay in the country?

If they can’t reliably identify someone that is a weakness in the system.

I thought they had checks for those kind of things not to happen, apparently those protocols are not being followed only those that face the public like groping others.

The government actually already got bitten by this type of thing in the past, I do remember an underage porn actress that got a passport from the US government.

ltlw0lf (profile) says:

Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

While the end result is outrageous, I don’t think ICE is totally at fault here.

Warrants must be confirmed and the individual being arrested on a warrant must be positively identified. Sounds like part of the process of doing so was done, they requested fingerprints. However, they needed to confirm the fingerprints matched before turning over the girl to the Colombian government.

Also, they should have run the fingerprints and the picture through the missing person system, which sounds like they failed there too. A whole bunch of fail.

FuzzyDuck says:

Re: Girl didn't help the situation thoough

“The fake name the girl provided was for a 22 year old.”

Yeah because that argument works so well for paedophiles. “Your honor, she told me she was 22 – I didn’t know she was just 14”.

It’s pretty amazing when ICE apologists, and maybe the ICE itself, resort to using the same arguments as paedophiles.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: What does this mean about laws against child pornography

Even our government, it seems, cannot tell just by external evidence whether a minor is really a minor or a 22-year old woman.

Doesn’t this mean that it is problematic (if not outright stupid) to make the possession of child pornography a crime, especially since it is one regardless of lack of intent?

And don’t get me started talking about steganography.

Someantimalwareguy (profile) says:

Re: God damnit...

Someone at ICE needs to be prosecuted for child abuse in this case. Regardless of whether or not the child lied, the fact remains that she was a 14 year old. I expect the agents responsible will enjoy their stay in prison and will be an adequate lesson to anyone else that would place a child, any child at risk because they were too lazy to actually verify who it was they had in custody.

Doesn’t anyone at ICE check the Amber alert system now and then at least?

Someantimalwareguy (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: God damnit...

I strongly suspect that you are be sarcastic / ironic / whatever. …

Ironic perhaps, but that is the problem when it is ok for agents of the government to abuse children and potentially place them in a life threatening situation due to incompetence. It is sad when the only reply is one where I am advised that I am being naive and that I should just accept that no one in power will ever be prosecuted or punished for the crime that took place in this instance.

IFO think it’s about time to change that type of general attitude and expectation by scaring the hell out of anyone who would even contemplate being lazy or incompetent when the life of a child is on the line…

Anonymous Coward says:

Ah, but you expect too much from thugs

The people who work for ICE are way, WAY too stupid to grasp details like this. We’re talking about knuckle-dragging baboons, barely able to keep from soiling themselves while on the job. To ask them to grasp nuance and subtlety is to ask the impossible; you might as well ask the cat to master Proust.

Which is why, of course, they meddle in things beyond their understanding: EVERYTHING is beyond their understanding. And this is also why anyone with even a modicum of intelligence who wishes to evade them, will — and easily.

Rikuo (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

No, no it isn’t, not according to you. This place is a haven for piracy apologists, you say.
Are you now suffering from multiple personality disorder? Or has your account been hacked? If a website is full of people whose views and ideas I loathe…I wouldn’t bother visiting it. I wouldn’t visit whatever sites child pornographers use to talk about CP…I’d avoid them for the scum they are.

Rikuo (profile) says:

Re: Re:

So…your response literally doesn’t have a point or purpose? Mike writes about how the American government wrongly deported a 14-year-old girl…and all you can say is to attack him?

Hey Mike…here’s something you might want to try. Write a story about a murder. Someone gruesome and evil. Then let’s see exactly how Average_joe manages to twist a story about a murder into why its so bad that Mike is a pirate.

Rikuo (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Why? How could it make you laugh? I understand humour as much as the next guy…but I don’t see how you can read an article about a wrongful deportation and LAUGH at it! I can see maybe a cynical laugh of depression like “Haha, the government is at it again”…but that wasn’t what you did. You read an article about a wrongful deportation and then, in the comments section for that article, just decided to laugh and call everyone here and the author idiots.
Others have said it before and I’ll say it again. You have no substance, no style, nothing to say that is meaningful in any way. You do not debate, you do not post anything that stimulates any sort of intellectual discussion, you have shown yourself to be the mental equivalent of Beavis and Butthead.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

Let’s say there’s a small campsite, really far from any cities, and at that campsite is some guy who’s role is cooking. Everyone knows it, and it’s no secret that the only thing he can be helpful with on this trip is cooking, and his beliefs are that his only concern on this trip is cooking. He normally cares nothing at all about other things (he’s even changed his last name to Cook to get the point across).

Now, if Mr. Cook was uncharacteristically getting some weird ideas from Ms. Davis (involving bombing the solar panel, the only source of electricity, to get rid of some mice), when normally he cares not at all about issues unrelated to his job, you’d probably be worried.

Shortly after this, Mr. Cook’s food started to taste weird. You don’t think you’ve ever suffered a stomachache that bad before.

Thinking that Mr. Cook’s behavior has been really weird and not at all like himself, you might think that Mr. Cook’s mental health is getting shaky on this trip. You wonder if maybe you should be in charge of the solar panel, not him.

G Thompson (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Are you now categorically stating that Government is by your knowledge and definition NOT “dumb and stupid”?

Are you sure you want to be remembered as stating this? Hint before you answer: think back to tax and admin laws/statutes, as well as Historic acts of government(s), as well as your own human observations using your intellect (that I know you have a fair amount of).

hothmonster says:

Re: Good start

ummm, white people stole this country a long time ago, its theirs now and they are not kicking themselves out anytime soon. Best we can hope for is they don’t kill everyone in their race to destroy themselves/the planet.

And be careful if enough minorities move into the US all the white people are gonna back up and take over another country, probably with some genocide, shady deals, and mass deportation

/semi snark

Rikuo (profile) says:

Re: re:

So…let’s take another stupid situation. Let’s say drafting is once again enforced in the U.S. Let’s say a 17-year old boy walks into a liquor store, and says he’s 18. Let’s say there’s an army recruiter there too for some reason. He looks at the kid, grabs him, drafts him into the army and the kid gets shot.
Was the kid stupid? Yes, for lying about his age to get beer. Did the kid deserve to get drafted? No, because that was a failure of the government representative to check the boy’s age.

The 14-year old girl lied about her name, and probably thought she had a very good reason to. Perhaps she’s had bad experiences with cops before. We don’t know. What we DO know is that ICE fucked up big time, in not at all bothering to verify her identity.
Or are you actually saying that law enforcement should take the word of everyone they arrest as the gospel truth?

That Anonymous Coward (profile) says:

Re: re:

She was following ICE’s example. ICE lies on a regular basis, why should they get to have all of the fun?

I am willing to believe that this is not the first time this happened, and most likely will not be the last time until they have to start paying large lawsuits.

Part of the problem is the demand of X deportations a year.
Part of the problem is keeping the outside contracted “prison camps” full and making their owners money, and covering up the abuses.

abc gum says:

Re: re:

“The 14 yr old girl lied. This will be harsh lesson in life. Don’t lie and always tell the truth. If she told the truth, she’d be fine.”

Extreme Logic Failure on your part.

Her lack of truthiness had nothing to do with the inept government bungling that occurred. Her real name could just as easily have been on the deportation list – which is, I guess, all that it takes to get a boot in yer ass. This will probably be held up as a shining example of why we need to carry our papers with us at all times – hell we will all need new, better papers soon in order to stop this sort of travesty from ever happening again. Subtle threats work great – huh.

Thomas (profile) says:

ICE...

is pretty much like the Gestapo; they do whatever they damn well please and don’t care what happens to the victims. Why should they? They know full well that nothing will happen to them as a result of the poor kid being deported. there will be an “investigation”, which is just like the “investigations” done by the American police departments’ “internal affairs” people. In other words ignore it and issue statement “Everything was done properly.”

The U.S. government spooks are now primarily responsible for preserving the multimillion dollar salaries of entertainment industry executives as well as other rich executives. They don’t care about wrecking the lives of millions of innocent people.

Violated (profile) says:

Columbia

I can only presume her holiday in Columbia ended when it did not turn out as nice as she expected.

I believe they should be lenient with her shoplifting when it is not like 14 year old runaways can get jobs to support themselves.

Knowing the American way I am sure many would ponder how she liked Africa. LOL

I can only feel that this girl needs to write a book when she had quite an adventure.

Call me Al says:

There must have come a point...

First of all let me say that ICE were completely in the wrong here. Not establishing the girl’s identity is utterly ridiculous and those responsible should be fired at the very least.

However… there must have come a point when the girl realised things were heading in an unexpected direction (such as when she boarded a plane for Columbia). At this point did she shout out the trust? Did she explain who she was, where she is from, how old she is?

If she did any of this and the officials still bundled on her to a plane then they need to be punished with more then just being sacked. If she didn’t do any of this then she is stupid but certainly not to blame for being deported.

Scott says:

So what's the solution?

Outrage. Outrage. Outrage.

But what is anyone proposing? Don’t deport anyone. open borders? Ask the rest of the world to send all their convicts and nutters to the states?

You get someone who says they’re a 22 year old from Columbia and never changes her story. She probably wanted the free trip.

It comes down to one screw up of not running the prints, but there’s no mention that there was a set of prints on file to match either identity. But yeah, shut down the agency because they made one mistake.

BLAME THE GIRL. Do you really think there are medical tests to confirm age? There are 20 year olds who do look young. Which is more likely to be true: she looks young or she doesn’t have the unique name she claimed. If she once said no, I’m a runaway call my mom, dad, grandma, school, dentist, … she wouldn’t have been deported.

Sounds like you’re all really arguing for a national ID system with barcodes or implants given at birth. That’s really the only way it can’t be the girl’s or parent’s fault.

abc gum says:

Re: So what's the solution?

“Sounds like you’re all really arguing for a national ID system with barcodes or implants given at birth. That’s really the only way it can’t be the girl’s or parent’s fault.”

I knew someone would try to argue this was proof of the need for the government to issue everyone new papers. Let’s not forget that one must carry their papers at all times or suffer the consequences.

Violated (profile) says:

Columbia

My point was that Americans are famous for being bad at geography. Not all people of course but many are still working on their states and avoid anything outside that. So some Americans would indeed falsely believe Columbia was in Africa and not South America.

For a more well known example of American knowledge then cruise ship tours around Europe are common for those in North America. In this case the tour guide pointed out that their next stop would be Southampton in England. When he asked if there were any questions then one American woman soon asked “Do they speak English here?”

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