Attorney: Dreamer attendant detained by ICE to be released

UPDATE:

The lawyer for a flight attendant detained by U.S. immigration authorities on her way back from an international work assignment says her client has said she is being released.

Attorney Belinda Arroyo says 28-year-old Selene Saavedra Roman called her husband Friday from a Texas immigration detention facility and said she would be getting out. It was not immediately clear when.

The call came shortly after Arroyo, Mesa Airlines and the Association of Flight Attendants publicly called for her release.

A message sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement was not immediately returned.

Arroyo said the airline had mistakenly reassured the enrollee in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that she could work a flight to Mexico, but Saavedra Roman was detained Feb. 12 upon her return to Houston.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:

A flight attendant who traveled to Mexico for work while enrolled in a program for immigrants brought to the United States as children has been detained by U.S. immigration authorities for more than a month, her attorney said Friday.

Selene Saavedra Roman, a 28-year-old originally from Peru who is married to an American citizen, was assigned an international flight and raised concerns about whether she could go due to her immigration status, said Belinda Arroyo, her lawyer.

Mesa Airlines mistakenly assured her she would be fine, but Saavedra Roman was stopped by U.S. authorities on her return to Houston Feb. 12 and sent to an immigration detention facility, Arroyo said.

” She should have never been advised that she could travel, ” Arroyo said. ” It was a big mistake. Now, why they have taken such a hard stance and not just released her while we figure out the legalities of it – I don’t know why. ”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement that Saavedra Roman didn’t have a valid document to enter the country and is being detained while going through immigration court proceedings.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services – the agency tasked with overseeing the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA – declined to discuss the case. But the agency says on its website that those who travel outside the country without a special document allowing them to do so are no longer covered by the program.

The agency no longer issues the document to the program’s enrollees, according to the website.

The Trump administration sought to end the Obama-era program but was blocked by litigation. New applications have been halted but renewals continue for hundreds of thousands of immigrants already enrolled.

In a joint statement with the Association of Flight Attendants, Mesa chief executive Jonathan Ornstein apologized to Saavedra Roman and asked U.S. authorities to release her, arguing it’s unfair to continually detain someone ” over something that is nothing more than an administrative error and a misunderstanding. ”

Saavedra Roman is being held in a Texas detention facility and scheduled to appear before an immigration judge in April, Arroyo said.

She was brought to the country as a young child and attended Texas A&M University, where she met her now-husband David Watkins, he said.

Watkins said he wasn’t initially worried about her assignment because they already obtained approval from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to apply for her green card as the wife of an American citizen. She has no criminal record and has long paid her taxes, he said, and she checked with her employer before the trip.

” I wasn’t afraid, but now I am very afraid. There is no certainty in this situation, ” Watkins said. ” If she does get deported to Peru, I will just move to Peru. ”

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