ST. LOUIS — A wife and mother living in St. Louis for nearly two decades could be deported by the end of the week.
Ilsa Lizeth Guzman Fajardo came to the United States back in 1999 and requested asylum. She missed her court date at the time because she said no one gave her a day, time or location.
The Supreme Court has since ruled that border agents must give that information to asylum-seekers.
“Ilsa continued about her life and built her life and family here in this country and, unbeknownst to her, she had a hearing,” said Sara John with the St. Louis Inter-Faith Committee on Latin America. “A judge had a whole decision, heard her case without her present and ordered her removed, denied her asylum claim when she didn't appear when Ilsa was not informed that she needed to,”
Guzman has been fighting legal battles since 2014. Last year she married a U.S. citizen.
Her husband filed a petition for permanent residency but that could take months. Now, Guzman's legal team is planning to file a petition for a stay to keep her in the country.
But if she is deported, it will be at least 10 years before she can even apply to come back to the U.S.
A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement provided the following statement:
On Feb. 12, 2019, ICE deportation officers arrested Ilsa Lizeth Guzman-Fajardo, 48, a citizen of Honduras who is illegally present in the United States, based on an outstanding final order of removal (deportation order) issued by a federal immigration judge on Jan. 26, 2000.
On Oct. 21, 2014, ICE officers encountered Guzman-Fajardo in St. Louis as an ICE fugitive (person with a final order who never left the U.S.) and took her into custody. ICE released her from custody on an order of supervision based on humanitarian reasons. In December 2018, a federal immigration judge denied her motion to reopen her case. As a result, she was taken into custody, and she remains in ICE custody pending her removal to Honduras.