Nylssa Portillo Morena, a young El Salvadorian child was brought to the United States illegally by her mother. Fortunately, in 2001, the Bush Administration granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to undocumented Salvadoran nationals who were in the U.S. before a series of earthquake in the Central American nation during January and February of that year. In short, Salvadorans current living in the U.S. could legally stay in the country and apply for work permits. Nylssa quickly took advantage of this and have her attorney applied on her behalf for a work permit.
However, Temporary Protected Status from the government made little to no difference when Nylssa was caught in an immigration detention after a traffic stop outside of Houston, Texas in 2019. She claimed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) officials did not believe her when she had told them about her protected status and wrongfully locked her up for eight full months.
On October 2019, Nylssa was pulled over by a Houston police officer due to an expired registration on her vehicle. When the officer ran her name however, it revealed that she was facing a theft-related warrants from Travis County, with more than $200,000 of alleged money stolen. A warrant Nylssa claimed she had not known about the warrant until the legal traffic stop. After spending two months in Travis County jail, prosecutors ultimately dropped all charges against her in December 2019. However, instead of being released from jail, her custody was being handed over to ICE agents for alleged immigration violations.
Nylssa is current filing a lawsuit against ICE and other related agencies for violating her legal rights. She is seeking $2 million in damages, attorney fees and violations.
Unfortunately, Nylssa’s case was one of many. Immigrations lawyers say that the deportation department often make graves mistakes, arresting U.S. citizens along with those with protected legal status.
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