Texas teenager, Jakadrien Turner, accidentally deported to Colombia

GlobalPost

A Texas teenage girl, who went missing in 2010, was mistakenly deported to Colombia by immigration agents and has yet to return to the United States, CBS News reported.

Following her parents divorce and her grandfather’s death, Jakadrien Turner, 15, ran away from home in the fall of 2010. She went to Houston, where she ended up being arrested for theft, CBS News reported. Turner then gave the police a fake name, which belonged to a 22-year-old Colombian illegal immigrant and had warrants for her arrest.

Turner was then deported by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who took her fingerprints but never checked them before Turner left the country.

Read more at GlobalPost: One of Colombia's top drug lords captured

Her family has been searching for her since her disappearance, even checking friends’ Facebook pages for information about Turner’s whereabouts. They managed to track her to Houston, where she worked at a club under a different name, although authorities wouldn’t help them from there, they said, CNN reported.

They soon learned that their teenage daughter, a US citizen who cannot speak Spanish, was in Colombia, working as a housemaid, the Daily Mail reported. A detective also learned that Turner had been partying and smoking marijuana and is now pregnant, CNN reported.

"There's no words," her mother, Johnisa Turner, told CNN of the ordeal. "It hasn't been easy at all."

When Turner’s location was found, US authorities asked Colombian police to pick her up at the embassy, but the South American country wouldn’t release her and she is still being held in a detention facility, CBS News reported.

"ICE takes these allegations very seriously," said ICE Director of Public Affairs Brian Hale, CBS News reported. "At the direction of [the Department of Homeland Security], ICE is fully and immediately investigating this matter in order to expeditiously determine the facts of this case."

The ICE said authorities believed Turner’s story and she maintained her false identity throughout the process, CNN reported. When she was handed over to an immigration judge she was deported. The agency said the criminal database searches and biometric verification showed no information that made Turner’s claims not true.

Still the family attorney, Ray Jackson, says the ICE “dropped the ball,” when not matching her fingerprints to the name she gave them.

Read more at GlobalPost: Colombia's friendlier face to the world

Sign up for our daily newsletter

Sign up for The Top of the World, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.