Mother of detained CPS student released from ICE custody, but son still being held
A Chicago mother has been released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, two months after she and her son were arrested at a routine check-in for their asylum petition.
Liliana Navarrete walked free on Wednesday from an ICE facility in Kentucky, but her son, Ricardo, remains in federal custody, just days before he is set to graduate from Mather High School.
They said they have no choice but to keep fighting, describing their time apart as "torture."
Liliana's emotional reunion with her other son, Steven, in Crown Point, Indiana, was bittersweet, after two months in ICE custody, because Ricardo was still hundreds of miles away in ICE custody in Kentucky.
"I feel incomplete, because my son Ricardo is still not here, and there's uncertainty, but we have hope that with God's help he will be with us so we can continue to be a family," she said in Spanish.
The high school senior will miss his prom and graduation because he remains in federal custody in Kentucky.
He's set to earn his diploma form Mather High School, and was planning to play soccer at Truman College next year.
He and his mom were detained together during a routine asylum check-in in March.
"ICE took away our work permit, our Social Security, our real ID, and they took my son's passport, and these are the documents we had in order," she said.
Liliana said the last time she saw Ricardo, they were in chains on their way to separate ICE detention centers.
"We were chained and we were only able to make contact like this, a little through the window guard. It was very painful," she said. "We said to each other. 'Everything's okay? Son, are you ok?' And he said, 'Tes, mom, yes.'"
On Tuesday, a federal judge in Kentucky ordered her released from custody, after both she and her son filed habeas corpus petitions seeking to be released on bond while their immigration cases play out in court.
Ricardo will remain in custody at least until his scheduled asylum hearing in the coming weeks.
