HAMILTON, Ohio — A recent Cincinnati high school graduate who has been the center of protests at the Butler County Jail has been deported to Honduras.
Sources confirmed to WCPO 9 that Emerson Colindres was set to be deported from the country Wednesday morning to Honduras. Colindres's soccer coach and former neighbor both confirmed to us that he safely arrived in Honduras and briefly talked to friends and family.
Colindres’ family moved to the United States in 2014 when he was 8 years old, seeking asylum after claims of gang activity against them in Honduras. In 2023, that asylum case was denied.
Earlier this month, the family attended what they believed would be a routine check-in with immigration officials, but Colindres was instead detained and held at the Butler County Jail for more than a week. Colindres' mother and sister were not detained but were given 30 days to leave the country.
Colindres' mother said her son called her on Tuesday and told her he was being held at the Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing center.
On Wednesday, we were told Colindres had been deported back to Honduras. Honduran deportees are typically flown into San Pedro Sula. Colindres' mother told us the industrial city is a four-hour drive from where her relatives live in the country's capital, Tegucigalpa.
WATCH: We continue to follow Colindres' story here
Congressman Greg Landsman issued a statement on Colindres' deportation, saying removing the 19-year-old from the U.S. isn't making the country any safer or better.
"Americans want a sensible, strategic and humane immigration system — this isn't it," reads the statement from Landsman. "Emerson came to Southwest Ohio as a young boy. He grew up here, went to school here and played soccer with his friends here. Tearing him away from his family won't fix a broken system — it's just cruel. His removal isn't making any of us safer or better."
Colindres' mother said she's been working with their attorney to get to Honduras as soon as possible.
Executive Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, Lynn Tremonte, released this statement following news of Colindres' deportation. In an earlier interview, Tremonte told us her son played soccer against Colindres and that she's been following his case closely.
"They did it. The Trump administration deported Emerson Colindres. What kind of cold, callous heart do you have to have deport a young man like him, at the start of his future? Like his whole family, Emerson was on a path to a U visa. He lived most of his life here. His teachers loved him, his teammates, his coaches. This didn't have to happen. The federal government could have made a different choice; they could have let him stay.
"When you give birth, it's like a piece of your heart is walking around outside of your body. I can't imagine what it was like for Emerson's parents, knowing he was far away in an immigration jail in Louisiana, and then on that deportation plane — in shackles, no less. My son is the same age as Emerson; they played soccer against each other. The only difference is, my son had the luck of being born here. It breaks my heart to think about Emerson being treated this way.
"People move. It's as old as time; a basic part of being human. Emerson's parents did what any of us would do, if we had to — they found a safe place to raise their kids. They applied for asylum, but the way our system works [zwly9k6z.r.us-east-1.awstrack.me] is so messed up. It doesn't actually provide safety [zwly9k6z.r.us-east-1.awstrack.me] for most people who need it. They found a different visa path and all the government had to do was wait a little longer for them to get it. But the Trump administration wouldn't wait. It wanted to Emerson to be another number in their mass deportation quota. But there's a person behind every number. There's a face and an entire community. These aren't statistics, they are human beings with hopes, dreams, and dignity.
"By all accounts, Emerson is a great kid who has a bright future ahead of him. Ohio will miss out, because Emerson is no longer here. This didn't have to happen and it doesn't have to happen again, to anyone. We need ICE out of our communities. We need to end the ICE contracts with Ohio county jails and police forces that make it possible for deportations like this to take place. We don't need bills like SB 172 [zwly9k6z.r.us-east-1.awstrack.me], that get only encourage more abductions of our Ohio community members. None of this makes us any safer, it only makes our families and communities more hurt and more broken."
Catholic Charities Southwestern Ohio, the immigration attorneys representing Colindres, released a statement Wednesday afternoon in response to his deportation.
"It's upsetting how aggressively and secretively this enforcement process has been applied to a non-criminal, young person who came to this country when he was just 8 years old. We will continue to support and pray for Emerson and his family, as they seek to be whole again. Embracing the moral framework of our U.S. Catholic bishops, we reaffirm our call for an immigration system that upholds both the rule of law and the principles of human dignity and mercy. When the enforcement of a law attacks human life and dignity, the integrity of a family, and the vitality of the community to be served by that law, then we should consider whether mercy from the prescribed enforcement is truly the more just course of action," the statement reads. "We urge our elected federal officials to prioritize immigration enforcement efforts on those who pose genuine threats to public safety. We plea for them to oppose mass arrests of non-criminal immigrants and to consider their individual circumstances and contributions to the common good.
That all came after family and friends endured more than 24 hours of uncertainty with Colindres' whereabouts.
Catholic Charities Southwestern Ohio said on Tuesday that they had not been notified by ICE about his location despite "repeated attempts" to find out.
The statement went on to call Colindres' case "extremely disturbing."
"This sort of clandestine and frightening treatment of a non-criminal 19-year-old is extremely disturbing, particularly because Emerson in no way matches the description of those whom the government has stated are priorities for deportation. We stand in solidarity with Emerson and his family, joining the community in prayer and appealing for mercy," the statement read.
We also reached out to multiple agencies with no answers, as well as checked ICE's online detainee locator, but Colindres' name returned no search results.
Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement, "As is the law, if you are in the country illegally and a judge has ordered you to be removed, that is precisely what will happen."
"Emerson Colindres is an illegal alien who has had a final order of removal since 2023. ... ICE’s ATD- Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) exists to ensure compliance with release conditions. All illegal aliens are afforded due process," McLaughlin said, in part.
Hear from some of Colindres' friends below:
