This is weird.

ejmaztec

Moral = If you get caught shop-lifting in Texas, don't pretend you're a foreign national, unless you want to get deported.:o




http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0107/breaking4.html

Texan teen home after deportation 'goof'


A pregnant 15-year-old Texas girl mistakenly deported to Colombia in a bizarre mix-up has returned to the United States to be reunited with her family.
Jakadrien Turner from Dallas was deported in May to a country she had never seen, and whose language she did not speak, after she gave a false name and age when she was arrested for shoplifting in Houston.
Colombia's Foreign Ministry said US officials had provided identity documents proving that Turner is a US citizen, opening the way for her to be handed over to US Consular officials and flown home.
Before the youngster's return, her grandmother, Lorene Turner, said she wanted answers. "I don't understand how this could happen. Someone made a goof, they goofed up," she said.
She also said her granddaughter was now pregnant.
The girl was a 14-year-old runaway from the Dallas neighborhood of Oak Cliff when she was arrested in April for misdemeanor theft, according to the Houston Police Department.
"The female told the arresting officers she was a native of Colombia and that her name was Tika Lanay Cortez, born March 24th, 1990," Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland, Jr. said .
Mr McClelland said jail personnel followed procedure by fingerprinting a detainee they believed was an adult foreign national and running a check against federal immigration databases under the Secure Communities program set up to deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes.
"The Secure Communities database provided no prior arrest history, no wanted status, or alternative identification for the prisoner," he said.
At that point, police assumed she was a 21-year-old criminal from Colombia, and deportation proceedings began. Two months later, the girl from Texas who does not speak Spanish found herself in South America, where she was issued a Colombian passport based on the information provided by US officials.
The Colombian ministry said the girl was referred to a program for repatriated Colombians established by the City of Bogota and the International Organization for Migration.
"We gave her shelter, counseling, and initiated a process of inclusion in a call center job given the information that she was older," the statement said.
Lorene Turner said the family, working with police and with Texas Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, located her in Colombia late last year, mainly by finding a Facebook page she created there. The Colombian Foreign Ministry said it then contacted the US Embassy.
"I am looking into the specific breakdowns in the process that led to Ms Turner's deportation," Mr Johnson said in a statement on Friday.
The Colombian government is also investigating how it issued a passport to an American citizen, based on what the ministry said were "inaccurate and unrealistic" statements.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Carl Rusnok said the agency takes the case very seriously, and is 'fully and immediately investigating the matter."
"After being arrested on state charges for theft, the minor provided a false identity," Mr Rusnok said. "She maintained this false identity throughout her local criminal proceedings in Texas where she was represented by a defense attorney, and ultimately convicted by the state criminal court. At no time during these criminal proceedings was her identity determined to be false."
New measures are being put into place "to ensure that individuals being held by state or local law enforcement on immigration detainers are properly notified about thei potential removal from the country," Mr Rusnok said.
Lorene Turner said she is not satisfied. "There has to be adults involved," she said. "No fourteen-year-old can change their name and get to Colombia."

Mr. Rager

Her first name is Jakadrien? Now that's weird.

membersonly

Some folks'll never eat a skunk but then again some folk'll....

Saila

reads like slows news day, goes to the net for story, re-prints

but doesnt realise the source was a faux news site

Coriolanus

That is awesome

WoollyRedHat

Maybe she is actually columbine and everyones been goofed in an elaborat goof affair

minidazzler

They done goofed.

charlemont

Classy bird...Now pregnant too..:rolleyes:

cafecolour

Wait. So can I go to the u.s. and do this too, and get a free trip to columbia and a columbian passport?

juan.kerr

Hope they billed her when she got home for the cost of all this. Lucky she didn't claim she was Iranian or North Korean.

ejmaztec

It reminds me of this film that I saw once, where an American of Mexican descent was accidentally scooped up with a load of illegals and sent to Mexico.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092690/

juan.kerr

ejmaztec wrote: »

It reminds me of this film that I saw once, where an American of Mexican descent was accidentally scooped up with a load of illegals and sent to Mexico.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092690/

Only got a 5.4 rating. It probably would have been better if they'd stuck in Ernest Borgnine or a helicopter.

Rhyme

She also said her granddaughter was now pregnant.

I love a good non sequitur on a Saturday.

ejmaztec

juan.kerr wrote: »

Only got a 5.4 rating. It probably would have been better if they'd stuck in Ernest Borgnine or a helicopter.

It was so good I don't even remember seeing the end of it.

mikemac1

A thief and pregnant at 15

What happened to God fearing Texas

Rhyme

mikemac1 wrote: »

A thief and pregnant at 15

What happened to God fearing Texas

God messed with Texas.

juan.kerr

ejmaztec wrote: »

It was so good I don't even remember seeing the end of it.

Sor for all we know Airwolf popped up piloted by Saint John, and killed them all.

ejmaztec

juan.kerr wrote: »

Sor for all we know Airwolf popped up piloted by Saint John, and killed them all.

The rating would have been 6 if that had happened. He was probably beheaded and his scooped out skull used as an ashtray.

Superbus

In the process of being sent there, could she not have said in the authentic Texas drawl I presume she possesses that she was not in fact Colombian?

juan.kerr

Superbus wrote: »

In the process of being sent there, could she not have said in the authentic Texas drawl I presume she possesses that she was not in fact Colombian?

The girl is 100% responsible for this. At any time during the 2 months she was held she could have raised the alarm, but she didn't. Had she done so, I'm sure the grandmother, non sequiturs aside, would have mentioned it.

ejmaztec

Perhaps she really wanted to go to Vancouver.

amacachi

They gave her shelter and a job in Columbia? Might try this meself.

Riamfada

me gusta

ejmaztec

amacachi wrote: »

They gave her shelter and a job in Columbia? Might try this meself.

Whatever you do, don't tick the box for the free baby.

anhedonia

She was a Texan runaway shoplifting to survive.
I bet she only gave the colombian alias to weasle out of the theft charge, and then when they started talking deportation proceedings she thought score!
I bet she snorted a truck-load of gak in those 2 months.

ejmaztec

anhedonia wrote: »

She was a Texan runaway shoplifting to survive.
I bet she only gave the colombian alias to weasle out of the theft charge, and then when they started talking deportation proceedings she thought score!
I bet she snorted a truck-load of gak in those 2 months.

She doesn't sound like the sort of person who has "thinking" on her list of personal achievements.

anhedonia

ejmaztec wrote: »

She doesn't sound like the sort of person who has "thinking" on her list of personal achievements.

Na you underestimate her.
As a 14 yr old tear-away she managed to get flown to South America and setup with a job, acommodation, and a foreign passport. Must have been quite an adventure. She was living the dream until grandmother intervened. Reckon that girl could have a bright future if she applied that kind of ingenuity to something more productive.