Congresswoman tracks down U.S. citizen children detained at Ferndale facility
A Portland mother and her four children, who are U.S. citizens, are being detained in Ferndale by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, according to U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter of Oregon’s 3rd congressional district.
The family has been held at the facility for nearly two weeks without any contact with legal representation or charges being filed, according to their lawyer, Jill Nedved with Gonzales Law Office in Seattle.
Dexter held a press conference Friday in front of the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) facility in Ferndale to highlight the case.
“An Oregon family was kidnapped and taken to an undisclosed location in Washington state,” Dexter said in a statement to the media. “After learning of this horror on Tuesday, my team worked for days to determine their whereabouts. I arrived in Bellingham on Thursday, where we ultimately located the family — after Customs and Border Protection (CBP) initially misled us.”The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol facility in Ferndale, Wash. Jack Belcher/The Bellingham Herald
At the press conference Dexter said the children are U.S. citizens who should be enjoying their summer.
“Instead they have spent almost two weeks locked in a detention facility, cut off from the outside world, and disappeared by their own government.”
Kenia Jackeline (Jackie) Merlos, and her four children were detained when attempting to enter Canada on June 28 with Merlos’ mother, who was visiting from Honduras, Merlos’ country of origin. All four children are younger than age 10, according to reporting by Oregon Public Broadcasting.
The children’s grandmother was separated from the rest of the family at the time and sent to the Northwest Detention Facility in Tacoma. She had an active travel visa, Dexter said at the press conference.
Dexter speculated the reason the grandmother was separated was because the four children are U.S. citizens and therefore cannot be transferred to the Northwest Detention Center, as the facility does not take children, and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not have the authority to hold them. However, U.S. citizens can be held by CBP for a limited time under specific circumstances.
The family has been in custody for nearly two weeks, with Dexter’s office learning about their disappearance on Monday, July 7.
“We didn’t know their location when we left Portland. We literally got into the car and started driving north, not knowing if we were going to Tacoma, Seattle or Bellingham,” Dexter said.U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter of Oregon held a press conference in front of the Customs and Border Patrol facility in Ferndale on Friday. Jack Belcher/The Bellingham Herald
It took two days for Dexter’s office to find the family, and she was only able to confirm their location when they arrived at the Ferndale facility Thursday afternoon. Dexter’s office had originally been told the family was in a different location.
“We got here and we still didn’t know for sure they were here,” Dexter said. “We came here because we heard they were not at the Seattle field office, which is where we were told they were initially. We came up here because it was the most likely place they would be.”
If Dexter’s office had not been told about the situation, it is unlikely Merlo’s friends and family would have been able to find her, said Mimi Lettunich, a friend of the Merlo family who has known Merlo for around 20 years. Lettunich attended Friday’s press conference remotely.
“When we talk about ‘What do we want in our community?’ — hard-working, of course. They go to church, and not just participating. Jackie is the worship director at the church,” Lettunich said. “(They) are collaborating with community outreach and things like The Salvation Army. … Their kids are in Christian school, and they are involved in all kinds of different activities and sports. They just won a music competition, just a few weeks ago, and a trip to Disney. I think about how their community is sending them to Disneyland, and our government is sending them to detention.”
As a member of Congress, Dexter has access to the CBP facility and was able to see the family through a window but was not given permission to speak with them.
“They have no idea who I was. I was not allowed to speak with them,” she said.
On July 3, five days after the family was detained at the U.S. and Canadian border, Merlos’ husband, Carlos, was detained by ICE agents in Portland. He has been detained by ICE. Because Merlo has not been able to talk with anyone outside the CBP facility, it is unlikely she is aware of her husband’s status, Dexter said.
Dexter’s office and Merlos’ attorney, Nedved, have access to Carlos in the Northwest Detention Center but still cannot speak with Merlos in Ferndale.
“We cannot connect the two of them to make sure that they understand the situation that the other is in,” Dexter said. “It is absolutely a travesty.”
Because nobody has been able to speak with Merlo or her children since she has been taken, it is also possible Merlo doesn’t know she has legal representation, Nedved said.
“We have an issue here where CBP is taking a role where they have detained a family for a period of a couple of weeks when these detention facilities are really only designed for short term,” Nedved said. “They (the family) have not been provided access to contact loved ones, access to contact council or understand what their rights even are.”
Nedved said Merlos is unlikely aware of her situation and is making a decision (whether to voluntarily deport) “potentially under duress.”
Dexter said despite the detainment, when she saw the family through the window it appeared they were being held in relatively good care. They have toiletries, heavy matts, linens and a refrigerator with food.
The family’s detainment cell connects to a larger area that contains a desk and the refrigerator, according to Dexter.
“Trump said he would go after ‘the worst of the worst.’ Instead, his immigration machine is abducting Oregonians without cause — including four U.S. citizen children in my district,” Dexter said in a statement.