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Glenwood Springs resident deported to El Salvador

There are three women sitting in a small apartment in Glenwood Springs. They’re calm, but all fight back tears.

“I just don’t want him taken away,” said AeeilynVillacara, 19.

One morning in late July, Villacara and her boyfriend, 26-year-old Adan Serrano,  were leaving their apartment. They were almost to their car when they were surrounded by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Villacara watched as they led Serrano away in handcuffs.

As the women sit together, he’s being held at a detention center in Aurora.  

Adan’s sisters, Glenda and Sandra Serrano, sit across from Villacara. They’re scared and anxious, but not surprised.

“Obviously, we came here illegally,” said Sandra Serrano. “I feel like it’s bad to say this, but it’s the truth.”  

Adan Serrano was 16 when he arrived in the U.S.; he and his sisters all came from El Salvador at different times. The sisters claim he had no choice but to leave. Gangs in El Salvador recruit kids and, if they don’t join, the gangs will kill them, or hurt their families.

According to Adan Serrano’s  sister Glenda Serrano, he and his best friend were recruited by a gang, but said no. The best friend was murdered and Adan Serrano fled the country. Glenda Serrano said that, in 2007, her brother applied for asylum, but convincing a judge in a case like his is tough.   

“It takes basically a Hail Mary,” said Catherine Chan; she’s Adan Serrano’s lawyer, based in Denver.  

 

The judge refused Adan Serrano’s claim. He was supposed to leave the country, but didn’t, which resulted in a deportation order. He continued living his life, with the threat hovering over him.  

Then came Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump. In 2016, speaking to a crowd in Phoenix, Arizona, he said, “We will break the cycle of amnesty and illegal immigration.”

Adan Serrano was detained during a surge of ICE arrests, nationwide. An ICE statement claims the agency was targeting undocumented people with “criminal histories,” or with “suspected gang ties.”

Adan Serrano has a criminal history. In 2012, he plead guilty to providing alcohol to minors. He was charged with a misdemeanor. The ICE surge also targeted families and people who came here as children.

Sophia Clark, the point-person for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition for the Rocky Mountain Region, thinks this is ICE casting a wide net.

“I mean that means anything, or anyone,” she said.   

For those who think Adan Serrano’s arrest is unique to the Trump era, think again, Clark said. President Obama was nicknamed “deporter-in-chief” because of the record number of deportations during his years in office.    

Under Obama, though, Clark and her colleagues could at least have a dialog with ICE.

ICE has discretion: They choose when and how to use their authority. Clark said she used to be able to advocate for people ICE arrested. Before Trump, she could appeal to ICE and could make a case for someone they’d put in detention.    

Now, there’s no accountability, according to Clark  

Back at the apartment in Glenwood Springs, Villacara and the sisters prepare to throw their own Hail Mary. Villacara and Adan Serrano already had planned to get married, so she plans to go to the detention center the next day and try and find a judge to wed the two of them. As his spouse, she’ll appeal to ICE and ask them not to send him away.

The next day, at the detention center, she finds there’s more paperwork she and Adan Serrano need to do. Even if all the paperwork is filed, and the two get married, does it matter? Catherine Chan, Adan’s attorney, doesn’t think so.

 

“Will anybody [care] at ICE, or the government lawyers office, or the appellate court? No, nobody there cares at all,” Chan said.

Adan Serrano and Villacara were not able to get married. Adan Serrano was transferred from the detention center in Aurora to one in Arizona. He was deported a little more than a week ago and is now back in El Salvador.

 

Note: Some of the names in this story have been changed for privacy purposes.

 

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