Bail set for Arkansas teen alien as U.S. shifts priorities

A federal immigration judge ruled that Tatiana Jaco-Alvarez can be released from a Louisiana detention center after posting a $1,500 bond, the lowest amount allowed by law, one week after authorities arrested the 18-year-old in Little Rock.

Jaco-Alvarez will remain in jail at least through the weekend, her attorney said, because her mother was not immediately allowed to post bond.

Local and national immigration lawyers said Jaco-Alvarez's arrest was a shift from how similar cases are handled. Her arrest was lawful but abnormal, attorneys said, because Jaco-Alvarez is already involved in so-called removal proceedings and has not skipped a court date or committed a separate crime.

"I would say that this would seem an overstep of their general process on these types of cases, particularly when nothing has changed since the time of [Jaco-Alvarez's] release in 2016," said Julie Mao, enforcement fellow at the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild in Washington, D.C.

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A public-affairs officer with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency won't take further action against Jaco-Alvarez, who arrived in the United States as an unaccompanied alien child in May, until her pending court case is resolved.

The arrest Jan. 27 came as attorneys expressed confusion about how the nation's immigration laws will be enforced after executive orders signed by President Donald Trump.

Mao said she has not heard of arrests of other aliens in cases similar to Jaco-Alvarez's. For example, some former unaccompanied children are arrested after turning 18, but usually only if a final removal order has been issued against them, which is not the case for Jaco-Alvarez.

Jaco-Alvarez was arrested when she reported to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Little Rock after being summoned by a Jan. 12 letter requesting that she "interview" with a deportation officer.

"I would say that everyone is on pins and needles across the country," Mao said, noting that many people have similar interviews next week. "As far as I understand, there hasn't been a mass order to re-arrest people. People are being called to check in. I do think we will know more, because there's a sense that people are waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Jaco-Alvarez spent the past week at LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, La., a five-hour drive from the Searcy home she shares with her mother and a younger sister, and will remain locked up at least through at least the weekend, said her attorney, Eric Henton of Memphis.

Jaco-Alvarez's mother and a family friend attempted to post bond Friday afternoon in Memphis but were informed that Jaco-Alvarez did not appear in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office computer system as eligible for release before the office closed for the weekend, Henton said.

After Jaco-Alvarez was arrested, her mother, who has lived in Arkansas for more than eight years, said she no longer planned to bring her two teen sons to the United States from El Salvador. The mother said she spent $9,000 to bring Jaco-Alvarez and her sister to the U.S. last year amid fears they could be in danger in their home country.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is not identifying Jaco-Alvarez's mother by name because she, too, is an illegal alien.

When the siblings arrived at the U.S. border, the Department of Homeland Security referred them to U.S. Health and Human Services as unaccompanied alien children. They spent three weeks at a New York shelter for unaccompanied migrants before they were sent to live with their mother in June pending their removal proceedings, Jaco-Alvarez's mother said.

El Salvador, home to more than 6 million people, is about the size of Massachusetts and is bordered by Honduras, Guatemala and the Pacific Ocean.

A 2015 Refugees International report says the country is the "murder capital of the world" and reported that its child-homicide rates ranked No. 1 globally. Female-homicide rates in El Salvador and neighboring nations, which make up Central America's "Northern Triangle," are also among the highest in the world, according to the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development.

"Women and children are often targets of gang violence in Central America," a 2016 Congressional Research Service report said.

Of the 59,170 unaccompanied migrants that the Department of Homeland Security referred to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department in fiscal 2016, 95 percent were from El Salvador, Honduras or Guatemala, according to federal data.

Jaco-Alvarez's attorney said he plans to file an asylum claim on her behalf but that he's not sure when he will do so.

Thomas Byrd, a spokesman for the New Orleans office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, on Thursday afternoon emailed the agency's first public statement on Jaco-Alvarez's arrest.

"Ms. Jaco-Alvarez is an ICE priority as she was apprehended at the border attempting to unlawfully enter the United States," the statement says. "While Ms. Jaco-Alvarez is an enforcement priority, ICE will await the outcome of her hearing before a federal immigration judge before taking further action.

"ICE is focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes the removal of criminal aliens and other individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security."

Byrd did not answer follow-up questions.

Federal immigration officials under yearsold policy could make illegal aliens an enforcement priority if they are accused of arriving in the U.S. after Jan. 1, 2014, which would be the case for Jaco-Alvarez.

However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not typically arrested people who arrived as unaccompanied children and have a pending removal case, as long as they complied with all immigration court directives, did not commit a felony crime and did not pose a threat to national security, attorneys said.

A Searcy High School student, Jaco-Alvarez has not been accused of committing a crime outside of immigration law. Her next scheduled court appearance is in March 2018, according to a court document her mother provided to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

"I think that it's an extreme interpretation, but also a dangerous harbinger of what's to come in this new Trump administration and how much ICE officers in the field can take matters into their own hands," Mao said.

Henton, Jaco-Alvarez's attorney, called the arrest a "useless exercise" and said immigration officials could have required Jaco-Alvarez to post bond in Little Rock without detaining her, if that was their desire.

"All they have done is, one, spent the taxpayer's money, and, two, harassed a teenage girl," Henton said. "If this administration really wants to be an efficient steward of taxpayer money, this is not the way."

A Section on 02/04/2017