A woman from the Lowcountry is preparing for a court appearance in North Carolina next month following her detention during a return trip from vacation. She experienced transfers across various detention facilities nationwide.
Maria Jose Leiton, who immigrated from Costa Rica, says she adhered to all necessary procedures and had no legal troubles during her time in the USA.
But she said, just as life began to feel settled, a vacation turned everything upside down.
“The supervising officer approached me and said, ‘Maria, you’re going to miss your flight. I’ll give you 5 minutes to call your boyfriend, who is outside, to inform him of your detention,” Leiton recounted.
Despite having her driver’s license, passport, and other documents at a U.S. Virgin Islands airport, Leiton was still detained while traveling back with her boyfriend.
Leiton said she received nothing when asked if there was a hearing or if a judge was present.
Leiton, who has been in the United States for six years, has been working, starting a business, and living with her boyfriend, who is a U.S. citizen, along with her 10-year-old son.
But Leiton said she felt like she was a criminal after being detained in that airport.
She noted that she was often transferred to different detention centers, frequently just before her court dates, with locations ranging from the Virgin Islands to Puerto Rico, Miami, Florida, El Paso, Texas, and Arizona.
In Miami, specifically, Leiton said she was moved to El Paso just two days before her court date, despite pleading that her day in court was quickly approaching.
Leiton said each detention center was different, but food was scarce, and medicine was hard to come by even when sick. Leiton said the guards could be nice or could be very difficult to deal with.
Eventually after months, two more moves and two more detention centers, Leiton was in Arizona and able to get a hearing and a bond.
But then it still took three weeks for her to be released. She was taken to San Diego, California, and left there alone 5,000 miles from home.
To add insult to injury, Leiton said they told her father she would be released from the Arizona detention center. He was waiting in the parking lot there when she called him from California. He was forced to drive several hours there to get to his daughter.
When he arrived, she had nothing but her suitcase and a new piece of jewelry in the form of an ankle monitor.
“People look at me like I am trash, a criminal, because when they see the ankle bracelet, they think ‘she’s a criminal.’ They never think is for immigration,” Leiton said.
Now back home, Leiton can’t leave the state. She has to check in with ICE regularly via an app on her phone. She said she is still confused on why she is now in danger of being sent away.
“People try to be legal in this country,” Leiton said. “They pay taxes. We try to do the right things. We never want to do the wrong things. And as a person, I respect your country. I know it is not my country. I respect the rules you have.”
Leiton said she applied for asylum five years ago and still has not received any information from immigration court.
Despite that, Leiton said citizenship is still something she is willing to work toward.
She told News 3 that her greatest fear is deportation. Not because she doesn’t love her family in Costa Rica, but it forces her to choose between taking her son from the only country he’s ever known, or enduring a separation that could last months, or even longer.
