A Wendell woman who was detained by immigration agents while she was working in November returned home to North Carolina on Tuesday.
Fatima Velasquez-Antonio landed at Raleigh-Durham International Airport Tuesday afternoon. She said that she is excited to be home in time to be with her family for Christmas. She was being held at a detention center in Georgia.
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"I'm so so happy to come back with family," Velasquez-Antonio said. "I don't know what to say right now but thank you for everything. Thank you so much."
Gene Smith, the organizer of Velasquez-Antonio's GoFundMe and her uncle, accompanied her back from Georgia, where she was released from the detention center over a month later Monday night.
"I told her aunt that I'm not going to leave Georgia until I have her," Smith said. "It's a true Christmas miracle in my opinion."
When asked to describe the conditions of the detention center, Velasquez-Antonio shook her head and could only describe that it was difficult for her and the other women there.
Smith added that Velasquez-Antonio knows there will be a huge fight ahead on her legal status.
"The family is sticking behind her, and we're not giving up," Smith told WRAL News. "I think she deserves a chance at the freedoms like you and I have. She's going to get it, she's a good kid."
He said that documents listed her as a criminal because she was in the country illegally. But he reiterated that as a 14-year-old, Velasquez-Antonio walked across the checkpoint, "knocked on the front door, told them [she] was a kid and [she] needs safe haven."
He continued: "In my opinion, that is not someone entering in your home illegally. That's knocking on the door and you allowing them in, so I think Congress needs to change that definition for illegal entry because she asked for safe haven, she was given it through an adjudication process, and unfortunately, she was detained because of that."
Video captured Border Patrol agents seizing Velasquez-Antonio on Nov. 18 at a construction site, where organizers say she worked.
Immigration agents with Customs and Border Protection were operating in Wake and Durham counties early in November, with the majority of them in Durham.
A document dated Friday, Dec. 19, from the Department of Justice show the government was “unopposed” to motion to terminate proceedings against Velasquez-Antonio.
It did not state why the Wendell woman was detained in the first place or why the proceeding was terminated.
WRAL News reached out to the Department of Homeland Security about the following questions:
- Why was Fatima Velasquez-Antonio taken into custody?
- What led to the decision to release her from custody?
- What led to Border Patrol targeting the construction site Velasquez-Antonio was at?
- Were other people detained as well?
- We see in the arrest video, Velasquez-Antonio provided an expired ID but that she had applied for a new one. Was this a green card, NC identification card or something else?
- If it was a green card, and she was applying for a new one, did BP have anything to check her status on the spot?
- Did the end of temporary protected status for Hondurans play any role in Velasquez-Antonio's detainment?
