Deported mother fears for her safety in Mexico, family in U.S.
Woman’s case drew international attention, but efforts did not hinder ICE
On the other end of the phone, Maribel Trujillo Diaz kept her details sparse, her voice soft. She worried about saying too much, or revealing her exact location, in case drug cartels had tapped the line.
In the days since she was deported to her native Mexico, the 42-year-old Ohio mother said she has already received threats. She hardly eats, and has trouble sleeping, she told The Washington Post. The risks are all too real for her family in Mexico’s gang-ridden west coast state of Michoacán — both her father and her brother have been kidnapped in recent years, and her mother extorted.
But Trujillo’s concerns over the dangers in her new home pale in comparison with her worries about her four children, including her epileptic 3-year-old daughter, who are living without her north of the border. She spoke to The Washington Post in her first interview since her deportation.
“The pain of leaving my kids,” Trujillo said, her words trailing off. “I can’t explain what it’s like to be apart from them.”
When immigration officers detained Trujillo earlier this month, her case prompted vigils and letter-writing campaigns, garnered international attention and drew support from Washington politicians.
None of the efforts stopped officials from proceeding with her removal. About two weeks ago, they transferred Trujillo, of Fairfield, Ohio, to a detention center in Louisiana. She was deported to Mexico on April 19.
Trujillo’s case joined a growing list of other deported immigrants now associated by the public with the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration enforcement. Her deportation was yet another clear sign that despite Trump’s claim that he is targeting dangerous criminals, his administration is deporting undocumented immigrants who are otherwise law-abiding.
“He says he is taking care of citizens, of Americans,” Trujillo said of Trump. “My kids are Americans. And just like he’s hurt my kids, he has hurt many citizens who have been left without a parent.”
Some supporters of Trump’s efforts to ramp up deportations argue that simply crossing the border illegally is a crime, and should warrant removal from the country. Trujillo acknowledges she broke the law, but she did so with her husband in 2002 to flee gang violence in Mexico.
When a drug cartel recruited her brother, about a decade ago, he refused, and they kidnapped him for several days. In 2014, the same cartel also kidnapped her father and forced her mother to pay a large sum of money to guarantee his return.
Immigration officials detected Trujillo about a decade ago in a raid at her workplace, Koch Foods, a chicken-processing plant. She applied for asylum, but in 2012 was denied. In 2014, her appeals were dismissed, and she received a final removal order. At the discretion of immigration officials under the Obama administration, ICE allowed Trujillo to remain in the U.S. free from custody as long as she checked in with officials once a year.
She was issued a work permit in July 2016 valid for one year. Her lawyers filed a motion to reopen her case because of “changed circumstances” in her home country, citing the recent kidnapping of her father, and expected the motion to be considered in the coming months, Trujillo’s lawyer said.
But before she got that chance, ICE officials detained Trujillo earlier this month outside the home of her sister-in-law, just before she was heading to work. She was detained and later deported to Mexico with no belongings, clothing, passport or other documents in her possession.
Gillian Christensen, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, told The Post ina statement that Trujillo’s case “has undergone review at multiple levels of our nation’s legal system and the courts have uniformly held that she had no legal basis to remain in the United States.”
Trujillo’s only chance of gaining asylum at this point is if the motion to reopen her case is granted in the coming months, her lawyers said.
“There’s no line for her,” her lawyer, Kathleen Kersh, of Ohiobased Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, told The Post. “She’s a really good example of why we need reform, because the system does not help people in her situation.”