the article is confusing. It says at one point she claimed to be a Colombian citizen. It also says she was working at a call center at one point in Colombia? It doesn’t sound like she made an effort to try to get back to the United States. It sounds like they tracked her to Columbia based on the IP address she used to post on Facebook.
They’re two separate branches of ICE, but I wasn’t posting it as if they were the same process (the process for being kicked out once in-country is evidently not the same as the process for not being allowed in, even though you have perfectly-valid papers). I was posting it as an example of a case where someone doesn’t have access to a lawyer’s counsel or any of all those things we’re used to taking for granted after too many cop shows, unless he or she happens to be with friends who call their nearest consulate/embassy.
I hope someone check the fingerprints very carefully this time. All indications, including the girl, point to this person actually being Colombian. On the other side you have a distraught but aged grandmother who says, based on blurry pictures, that she is her runaway granddaughter.
Only once does the writer appear to cryptically allude to the journey that landed her in Colombia. That came on a July 28 Facebook post that reads, “I’m fking tired I just want a fking time machine, and rewind all the bull**it I did wrong man OMG… I’m never going to be happy here.”
Check fingerprints against what database? Do all children in the USA have their fingerprints on record? Do all people in Columbia have their fingerprints on record? I could see there being fingerprints if a person had been arrested, but barring that, I wouldn’t be suprised if a fingerprint check came up blank. When kids are reported missing to police in the USA, are their fingerprints lifted from items in their home and entered in a central database?
My guess is that her family in the USA would have a fairly good idea as to whether or not the person returned to the USA is her or not – of course with some dysfunctional families that sort of thing might not be too certain . . . .
Columbia has traditionally been how the name of the country was translated into English from the Spanish Colombia. It’s as acceptable as called Sverige Sweden or Polska Poland. I’m aware that it’s now considered better to use the Spanish name in English as well. But sue me, I’m fifty years old and it was Columbia when I went to school and that’s what I’m used to.
They apparently didn’t have fingerprints to check against.
Either way. a few things bother me about this whole situation. One, people really need to get over this obsession with bashing the government (or corporations) for any real or reported mistake. Especially, when the “aggrieved party” is some jackass who deliberately lies to cause trouble, has a dubious story and does nothing to correct the situation, or this case.
There is little reason to blame ICE for this. How much effort should they go to to prove someone is lying about their background in order to RECEIVE a punishment? Honestly, most sane people would have zero motivation to do that. It’s doubly annoying that many of the same people bitching about how the government can’t be trusted will bitch even more when they deportation process slows to a crawl, and costs far more because they have to triple check that every person is not lying in order to get deported.
Second, I am tired of shitty reporters and editors not subjecting their columns to a basic fucking smell test. It’s less dignified than gossip, and has basically no informative value. These people don’t even bother to ask basic fucking questions, and I, as a somewhat cynical reader, have to wonder if it’s because they don’t want to hear the answers for fear that they will lose their shocking headline. I doubt they will change, but I wish people would stop reacting to these fanciful stories without waiting for the facts to come out.
Fifty years old or one hundred and fifty, I’d be interested to see any published document spelling it with a U. This map from 1828 spells it with all Os. So does this book, (Four Centuries of the Panama Canal), published in 1906, which addressed the issue of wresting Panama from Colombia in order to get the canal made. (It’s likely, though, that local school teachers would misspell it, simply by confusing it with British Columbia, District of Columbia, and association with Christopher Columbus.) In any case, this isn’t a question of spelling it “the modern” way.
There was an arrest warrant issued in the US for a Colombian woman, by name, with identifying features. This means that at one point, the woman was in custody, and anytime law enforcement takes someone into custody, they fingerprint them.
All ICE had to do to verify the child’s claim would be to fingerprint her and compare those to the previously taken fingerprints. Depending on what jurisdiction the original arrest warrant was issued in, this might have taken 30 seconds or maybe a day or two.
There was never any need to check with Colombia. And, yes, strange as it may seem, I do think we ought to verify the identity of a person before we ship them off to another country - even if that person appears to be delighted to go.
It doesn’t mean that at all. Arrest warrants are issued all the time for people who have not previously been in custody. All it means is they got a name and description from somewhere or someone.
