Officials investigate case of deported Texas teenager

El Paso: The grandmother of a Dallas teen who was deported to Colombia is hoping the 15-year-old can come back soon and says federal officials should have done more to identify the girl after she gave a fake name and claimed to be an adult.

Immigration officials say they're investigating the circumstances of the case involving Jakadrien Lorece Turner, but that they followed procedure and found nothing to indicate she wasn't who she claimed to be — an illegal immigrant from Colombia.

The girl, who ran away from home more than a year ago, was recently found in Bogota, Colombia, by the Dallas Police Department with help from Colombian and US officials. It was unclear when she might return to the US or whether she would face charges.

Her grandmother, Dallas hairstylist Lorene Turner, calls the deportation a "big mistake somebody made".

"She looks like a kid, she acts like a kid. How could they think she wasn't a kid?" Lorene Turner asked on Thursday.

Citizenship

Jakadrien's family says she left home in November 2010. Houston police said the girl was arrested on April 2, 2011, for misdemeanor theft in that city and claimed to be Tika Lanay Cortez, a Colombian woman born in 1990.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday that the teen claimed to be Cortez throughout the criminal proceedings in Houston and the ensuing deportation process in which an immigration judge ultimately ordered her back to Colombia.

The ICE official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to not being authorised to discuss additional details of the case, said the teenager was interviewed by a representative from the Colombian consulate and that country's government issued her a travel document to enter Colombia. The ICE official said standard procedure before any deportation is to coordinate with the other country in order to establish that person is from there.

The girl was given Colombian citizenship upon arriving there, the ICE official said. Dallas Police Lt Robert Hinton, head of the department's youth division, told the AP on Thursday the US embassy in Bogota had confirmed the girl was found and is under protective custody by the Colombian government's agency that oversees children's welfare.