Activists are sounding the alarm after a St. Albans woman and her two children were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and deported to Honduras despite seeking asylum as victims of human trafficking.
Greisy Mejia, her 9-year-old daughter and her infant son had been living in St. Albans since April. Originally from Honduras, the 29-year-old woman traveled north to the U.S. in 2023 with her two children after receiving threats against her life in her home country, according to interviews with three activists and attorneys who had been working with Mejia. When they crossed the border, the family members were kidnapped and held ransom, the advocates said.
They managed to escape, and after reaching law enforcement authorities in Texas, were permitted by federal immigration authorities to travel to Vermont, where Mejia’s partner lives, according to the advocates. She had been wearing an ankle monitor during her three-month stay in Vermont.
But during a check-in at the St. Albans ICE field office on July 9, Mejia and her children were detained, despite ICE agents knowing she was in the process of applying for asylum, according to the advocates, from Migrant Justice and the Center for Justice Reform.
The advocates say the mother and her young children were put on a plane back to Honduras the next day before they could file emergency paperwork delaying the deportation. Dozens of people rallied on July 9 outside of the St. Albans office as Mejia and her children were driven away.
“It’s an incredibly dire situation,” Will Lambek, an organizer with the local advocacy group Migrant Justice, said in an interview. “Her life is at risk in Honduras.”
In a press release, attorneys and other activists called the deportation a clear violation of the government’s legal protections for asylum-seekers. Mejia had faced threats of violence in her home country, they said, making her eligible for asylum in the U.S.
But she was also a victim of human trafficking, according to Brett Stokes, an attorney with the Center for Justice Reform, making her eligible for a T visa, which would have granted her eligibility to live and work in the country for up to four years. Mejia was working on that process with Catalina Londono, a legal fellow with Migrant Justice, when she was detained.
“ICE needlessly and knowingly sent a family back to a country where their lives will be at risk — in violation of the law and the agency’s own guidelines,” Thelma Gómez, an activist with Migrant Justice, said in a press release. “We hold ICE responsible for any harm that comes to Greisy and her family.”
She added, “This is an attack against the entire immigrant community.”
VTDigger’s repeated attempts to reach ICE went unanswered over several days. A phone call with the ICE field office in St. Albans was directed to the agency’s Boston office. Emails and voicemails left with both the Boston office, as well as the federal office, did not lead to comment before press deadline.
Mejia had been running a restaurant in Honduras when she was approached by a local criminal gang demanding protection money, according to Londono, who had been working closely with Mejia during her stay in Vermont.
She refused and began receiving threats. At one point, she was physically assaulted at her restaurant, Londono said. She fled to nearby Guatemala and stayed there for several months, but the threats continued.
Mejia first tried entering the U.S. in November 2023. Upon reaching the border she sought asylum status but was turned away in an expedited summary deportation, Stokes said. With her two children, she tried again in February, this time crossing the border without turning herself over.
But they were kidnapped as soon as they made it across, according to advocates who have been working with Mejia through the asylum process. The kidnappers held them for weeks and demanded $9,000 ransom from her family. Mejia and her children were finally able to escape and reached a police officer in Uvalde, Texas.
Brett Stokes, an attorney with the Center for Justice Reform and a visiting professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School, said that because of her situation, Mejia should have been eligible for what’s called a “reasonable fear” interview, the first step in the legal path to asylum or protection when immigrants have reason to fear for their lives if they are deported.
But that never happened, according to Stokes, who, along with Londono, had been supervising her immigration case and said her rights to have a credible-fear interview weren’t honored.
“Even though she expressed fear of returning to Honduras, she never had an opportunity to have a conversation with an asylum officer when she was detained,” he said.
After escaping her kidnappers, Mejia and her children were detained in Texas until March, where Stokes said she never had an opportunity to speak with an asylum officer about her fear claims, nor did she have an opportunity to have her claim reviewed by an immigration court.
The family was given a summary reinstatement order, issued against noncitizens who return to the country without authorization after previous removals.
But because her partner was in Vermont, federal immigration authorities allowed her to travel to the state under the government’s Alternatives to Detention program.
Mejia had had routine check-ins with ICE agents in St. Albans, Londono said, and they were preparing to file a stay of removal so that she could finish her application for a T-Visa.
“They knew what we were planning on doing,” she said, referring to the ICE agents.
Londono said agents had asked Mejia to come in with her kids on July 9 and had suggested they would be able to remove her ankle monitor. Agents made them feel confident about the process, Londono said, and reassured them that the check-in would be routine.
After she had her ankle monitor removed, they could then drive to Massachusetts to file necessary paperwork for the visa application and stay of removal, Londono said. (ICE requires paperwork to be filed in person at the Boston office, Stokes said.)
Mejia and her children waited at the St. Albans ICE office for six hours without food, according to a press release issued by Migrant Justice, before agents formally detained them. By July 10, Mejia and her two children were on a plane to Honduras.
Advocates with Migrant Justice said they are preparing to file Mejia’s T visa this week — visa applicants do not need to be in the country to apply — while Mejia and her children are in Honduras. They will try to seek refuge in Guatemala while her visa application is pending, Londono said, but her children’s passports remain in the U.S.
“So, we are working on getting her passports sent to her to a safe location,” Londono said.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Advocates say St. Albans woman was wrongfully deported to Honduras.