• 03
  • February
    2012

A 15-year-old girl lost five family members, including her entire immediate family, in the Interstate 75 accident in Florida last weekend. The teenager is an undocumented immigrant who many believed would face deportation/removal. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has since said that "reports of her facing deportation are completely false."

The teenager's family emigrated from Brazil when she was only two years old. "The family wanted to obtain legal status but had no laws to help them do so," said a family friend and pastor of their church. Like other undocumented immigrants who came here as young children, the teenager doesn't know anyone in Brazil and cannot speak Portuguese.

Furthermore, due to the girl's immigration status, she has no medical insurance to pay for the injuries she sustained during the accident. According to CNN, Governor Rick Scott visited the girl and may have offered help.

DHS priorities for immigration deportation

This is one example where ICE is following the priorities outlined by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2011. The teenager does not fall into any of the priority categories for deportation: convicted criminals, immigration fugitives and recent border crossers.

DHS announced that it would review all deportation cases before immigration courts with the goal to prioritize deporting convicted criminals over other illegal immigrants. Low-priority immigrants include students, military service members, close family members of American citizens and the elderly. According to Homeland Security, the goal is to make federal immigration lawyers "more like federal prosecutors, who decide what case to bring."

Source: CNN, "Feds: Teens Injured in Florida Pileup Won't Be Deported," Feb. 2, 2012.