A flight attendant who traveled to Mexico for work through a program for immigrants brought to the U.S. as children has been detained. A...
A flight attendant who traveled to Mexico for work through a program for immigrants brought to the U.S. as children has been detained.
Attorney Belinda Arroyo said Friday that 28-year-old Selene Saavedra Roman raised concerns about whether she could work an international flight due to her immigration status.
Arroyo says Mesa Airlines mistakenly reassured the enrollee in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, that she could.
Selene Saavedra Roman (pictured above) had raised concerns about whether she could work an international flight due to her immigration status
However, US authorities stopped Saavedra Roman on her return to Houston.
She is originally from Peru and came to the US aged three.
Roman graduated college at Texas A&M and was granted legal status under DACA.
According to Roman's attorney she has now been held for more than a month at an immigration detention center in Conroe, Texas.
Roman is married to an American citizen, David Watkins, and is in the process of applying for legal residency status.
Watkins told NBC that his wife had put Mexico and Canada on her 'no fly' list 'very intentionally' when she was hired by Mesa Airlines.
Hillary Clinton mentioned Roman's plight on Twitter and asked people to sign a petition calling for her to be released from a detention center where she is being held by ICE
Watkins said he did not know his wife had been sent to Mexico. He learnt by text upon her return that she had landed in Houston but was being detained.
'It has been absolutely terrible,' Watkins said. 'Sometimes you have a nightmare and when you wake up you say, 'Okay the nightmare is over.' When I go to sleep, I have nightmares. When I wake up, I'm still stuck in the nightmare.'
Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton lent her voice to Roman's plight, Friday.
'This is an awful story: A DACA recipient in good standing was told by her airline she could work on a route to Mexico. Now she's in detention and ICE is threatening to revoke her status,' Clinton tweeted.
She went on to ask people to sign a petition calling for Roman's release.
Mesa Airlines apologized and joined the Association of Flight Attendants in also asking for her release.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement says Saavedra Roman didn't have a valid document to enter the country.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says on its website that those who travel outside the country without permission are no longer covered by the program.
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