A Lutheran pastor from Racine and her husband are in detention after their DACA recipient daughter was arrested

When Paula Hincapie was arrested last week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while driving her 5-year-old daughter to school, she was confused.

She is a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a federal program aimed to temporarily protect from deportation undocumented immigrants brought into the U.S. as children. She had also started the process to become a permanent resident sponsored by her husband, a U.S. citizen serving in the Army and currently deployed abroad, she said. The couple is now divorced. 

Officers took her and her daughter back to her home in Chicago, where they arrested her mother, a part-time pastor at Emaus Lutheran Church in Racine; her father; and a cousin who was in the home. 

On Wednesday, ICE told Hincapie that they wouldn’t try to deport her at this time, but her parents, who were denied their petition for asylum and issued a notice of removal years ago, remain under ICE’s custody in Kenosha County.

“I´m relieved that nothing bad happened,” Hincapie said about her check-in visit with ICE on Wednesday. “But I'm worried about my parents.”

Hincapie, 26, said ICE agents stopped her last Wednesday just one block away from her home. She initially thought that the officers could be impostors because they wouldn’t show her their badges, she said. They told her they were looking for her, but they wouldn’t explain why, she said.

When the officers arrived at her home, they arrested her father, Carlos Hincapie, as he was leaving for work. Paula Hincapie said they pushed him toward the car and, after checking him, ordered him to open the home’s door.

Inside they found her cousin and her mother, Betty Rendón, who was preparing breakfast in her pajamas. Her cousin got scared and hid in the basement, where ICE agents caught him. Hincapie said ICE agents didn't allow her mother to change. Hincapie's daughter was upset.

“She was crying, crying all the time,” she said.

Hincapie said there were at least eight ICE agents, all armed with guns. They handcuffed them and took them to downtown Chicago. After a few hours, they let her go, telling her to check in with ICE on Wednesday, but they kept her parents under custody.

"I feel like our rights were abused," Hincapie said.

Asylum seekers from Colombia

The family arrived in the U.S. in 2004 and applied for asylum, she said. Hincapie’s mother was a principal at a school in Colombia and, she said, guerrilla members threatened to kill her because she was opposing the group's efforts to recruit students.

The asylum petition was denied and ICE issued a removal order in 2009 but never enforced it, said Hincapie´s attorney, Christopher Elmore. Hincapie was granted deferred action after receiving the removal order, which she disclosed in her application.

The program, established by former President Barack Obama´s administration, grants recipients temporary protection from deportation and allows them to work legally in the U.S.

Elmore said he doesn´t understand why Paula Hincapie was arrested and he didn’t receive any explanation from ICE on Wednesday. He said during the check-in they were told that ICE had discretion over whether to start deportation procedures against DACA recipients, and that ICE was using its discretion now to not deport her.

“I'm as shocked as everyone else about this,” Elmore said before the check-in with ICE.

Late Wednesday, a spokeswoman for ICE said Rendón and Paula Hincapié were ordered removed by a federal immigration judge in 2008. The next year, the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld the immigration judge’s removal order, the spokeswoman, Nicole Alberico, said.

Rendón remains in ICE custody pending her removal to Colombia, Alberico said.

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of the Milwaukee immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, said during a news conference outside ICE's Chicago office that the arrest of Hincapie and her family is an example of the Trump administration's intention to separate immigrant families.

“We are going to fight to keep this family together,” she said.

Bishop to attend vigil

Emaus Lutheran Church organized a prayer vigil to support Rendón that was to take place Wednesday night in front of the Kenosha Detention Center. 

The Rev. Paul Erickson, bishop of the Greater Milwaukee Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said he would attend the vigil.

“Why ICE is now choosing to enforce this order is unclear, and the manner in which it was enforced and she and her family were arrested is cause for great concern,” he said in a Facebook post.

Erickson said that Rendón was a candidate for ordination who is also enrolled as a student at the Lutheran School of Theology in its Doctor of Ministry in Preaching program. She was authorized to preach and preside at Emaus church for a year.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that Paula Hincapie is no longer married to her husband who is serving in the Army.