A 17-year-old immigrant was about to start his first day at work at a Lewiston construction site when he got caught in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Jose Adalberto Herrera was riding with his uncle to work in February when the Maine State Police stopped them for allegedly speeding. During that traffic stop, troopers called U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, which detained the pair when officers learned they weren’t in the U.S. legally, according to the Boston Globe.
Now Herrera is being detained in New York City, more than 300 miles away from his mother and three siblings, ages 1, 6 and 11. Herrera’s two youngest siblings are U.S. citizens, the Globe reported.
Herrera came to the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor in 2019, when he was 12 years old. His mother had been in the U.S. for about nine years, and his father even longer. Herrera spent a month in federal custody before being released to his parents, according to the Globe.
His mother told the Globe Herrera was supposed to get an immigration court date, but despite their repeated efforts to work with the court, that date never came.
Sue Roche, the executive director of the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project in Maine, on Tuesday condemned Herrara’s detention, saying it is “extremely unusual, if not unprecedented,” for an unaccompanied minor who has been reunited with his family to be detained again.
“The detention of Jose Adalberto Herrera, like other cases across the country, makes clear that the Trump administration’s rhetoric that it is prioritizing people who pose a threat to society is patently false. The administration is targeting immigrant families and communities broadly, and its depraved xenophobic agenda does not exempt children. This is family separation in another form,” Roche said in a statement.
Roche called for the Trump administration to release Herrera and reunite him with his family.
“There is absolutely no legitimate public policy reason to tear children away from their families and place them in detention centers so that they can be deported as rapidly as possible. It is cruel, inhumane, completely unnecessary, and flies in the face of family unity and child protection which should be at the heart of our immigration system,” she said.
A U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer told Herrera’s mother that the boy faces deportation to El Salvador, according to the Globe.
“If you wish, you can turn yourself in, and be deported with him. But he is going to be deported either way,” the officer told her, according to a recording of the Feb. 27 phone call.
