CHEVIOT, Ohio — In Emerson Colindres’ room, there are at least five pairs of Crocs scattered across the ground. His letterman-style jackets still hang above a large gaming TV. And a Manga poster blocks the light coming from outside the window.
On the bed, his sister Alinson sits down next to piles of folded clothes and shakes her head. She doesn’t really know what else to say.
The 16-year-old is not used to her brother being gone.
A few feet away, there’s a pamphlet from Colindres’ high school graduation. To his family, that now seems like a lifetime ago.
Before she leaves his room, Alinson bends over and grabs a pair of Batman Crocs. She knows Colindres will want them in Honduras. Upstairs, Ada Bell Baquedano is packing for a trip she hoped she’d never have to make.
“It's just kind of been like my mind is on fire,” Baquedano told WCPO 9 News through a translator. “We really are leaving.”
WATCH: This family called the Tri-State home for years. Now, they're leaving for Honduras.
Sometimes, she says she doesn’t fully understand what happened to her and her family. In their living room, there are suitcases and bags scattered across the couch. Two pairs of soccer cleats sit on top of one.
“That’s Emerson’s suitcase,” Alinson said.
Immigration officials deported Colindres last week. They also ordered his mom and sister to leave within a month. That’s why they’re packing.
“It's been really, really hard,” Baquedano said.
She rips a shoebox in half and stuffs it into a Walgreens bag. Baquedano tells me that for more than a decade, she’s lived a quiet life with her two children in Cheviot. It’s a life she remembers much differently from the one she had in Honduras.
As a kid, she remembers parents who rarely left her alone.
“I was never allowed to go anywhere,” Baquedano said. “I could go to church or I could stay at home.”
It's why she moved to America, applying for asylum after she says she was robbed by gang members in the country where she was born.
But that asylum claim was denied. In 2023, a judge issued a removal order.
On June 4, at what Baquedano thought was going to be a routine check-in, immigration officials acted on that order. Colindres was detained and taken to the Butler County Jail, where some of his family, friends and soccer teammates protested outside.
Two weeks later, he flew back to Honduras in handcuffs.
“It's been hard,” Alinson said. “I've never gone so much time without seeing him.”
Looking through photos on her phone, she smiles.
“He's like my favorite person in the whole world,” Alinson said.
At the airport in Hebron on Tuesday morning, dozens of friends and family gather to say goodbye. It's still dark outside when they pose for pictures. A soccer parent is there. And so is Baquedano’s dad. He records videos on his phone, telling me he worries he’ll never get to see his daughter in person again.
“It's been a total blur,” Baquedano said.
So she cries. And as she stands in line for security, she waves. She's worried, of course, but she's also excited to see her son.
“She doesn't really have anything,” Alinson said earlier, translating for her mom. “It's just us two. As long as she's got us two by her side, it's OK. That’s what she said.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Baquedano gave her son a hug at an airport in Honduras.
