JACKSON, Miss.—Two brothers, ages 8 and 10, stared nervously into news cameras on June 19, the room falling quiet as they spoke softly but with determination to a group of onlookers who were much older than themselves.
“We need our dad back home,” K, age 8, said at the press conference in Jackson with members of the Immigrant Alliance for Justice & Equity standing by their side.
Immigration officials had just detained their father, Kerlin Moreno-Orellana, earlier that morning after Jackson police arrested him for illegal dumping.
IAJE asked that the children only be identified as “K” and “J” to protect their identities.
The boys, who are Moreno-Orellana’s two oldest sons, shared how much they love and miss their father, who they said is always so proud of them when they do well in school.
‘He Was At Work’
K and J’s words served as a stark reminder of the collateral damage that often follows immigration detainments and deportations: loved ones broken apart from each other, children separated from their parents and left with psychological scars and at risk of economic instability.
At the time Jackson police arrested him, Moreno-Orellana was at work.
“Mr. Kerlin Moreno-Orellana was doing what so many of us do every day. He was at work,” Mandesha-DeSha’ Thornton of the Immigrant Alliance for Justice & Equity said during the press conference at the M. W. Stringer Grand Lodge on June 19. “During that time, while he was at work, he was instructed, under the guise of his boss, to do a couple of tasks. During those tasks, Mr. Kerlin was arrested along with his boss.”
Jackson police arrested Moreno-Orellana and his boss, Christy Parker, on Monday, June 16, after they allege they found the pair dumping trash outside an abandoned apartment complex on Harrisdale Lane near Brookwood Drive. He has worked for her for about a year on real-estate projects.
Parker has publicly disputed the charges. Local law enforcement officials have intensified their efforts to deter illegal dumping in recent years.
What followed Moreno-Orellana’s arrest is a testament to the vast system behind U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s many detentions and deportations, both in the second Trump era and before. An automated message arrived at the office of the Pacific Enforcement Response Center, or PERC, in Laguna Niguel, California. ICE agents flagged Moreno-Orellana and forwarded it to the nearest ICE field office, likely one in Pearl, Mississippi.
That office then put a detainer on Moreno-Orellana, a controversial practice that immigrant activists argue conscripts local police officers into the already enormous apparatus of ICE enforcement. The Hinds County Sheriff’s Department complied with that detainer, turning Moreno-Orellana over to ICE Thursday morning.
Then, Moreno-Orellana boarded the same long ride to Jena, Louisiana, that so many other Mississippi immigrants have experienced, often while bound and shackled, to be deposited in the crowded cells of the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center. For now, nothing in his life is certain, least of all the day when his children will see him again.
Trump Immigration Policies Spark National Protests
While police released Christy Parker, who is white, from custody shortly after the pair’s arrest, Kerlin Moreno-Orellana remained detained. Members of the Immigrant Alliance for Justice & Equity believe that he was acting under the directive of his employer to dump the items and that ICE unjustly detained him.
“The same charge, the same arrest, but she got to walk free,” Mandesha-DeSha’ Thornton said. “That’s not justice, that’s racial bias.”
Moreno-Orellana’s detainment is indicative of pervasive racial animus ramped up under President Donald Trump, the group argued.
Nathalia Rocha Dickson, an immigration attorney based in Louisiana, told the Mississippi Free Press in a June 23 interview that police coordination with ICE was a legal process that nevertheless damages local communities.
“Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act allows the federal government to deputize local law enforcement for immigration work,” Dickson said. “It creates an enormous amount of distrust in the police. When crimes happen and people who are undocumented are witnesses, they’re discouraged to contact the police to provide any kind of information.”
“It’s also onerous for the local police,” she continued. “You’re executing the work of a federal immigration agency and the local community is paying for it.”
Moreno-Orellana is currently listed as a detainee on ICE’s detainee locator page, harbored at the same Louisiana facility where Sturgis, Mississippi, resident Kasper Eriksen is detained and where Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was detained before his recent release.
The Mississippi Free Press reached out to IAJE in hopes of discussing Moreno-Orellana’s detention and possible deportation with his legal team and family, but the organization declined to arrange for interviews.
They did share an official GoFundMe benefiting Kerlin Moreno-Orellana’s family. It has currently raised $195 out of a $3,000 goal.
“Kerlin has been a beloved Jacksonian for 16 years,” his wife wrote on the fundraiser. “(He’s) always willing to help his neighbors. Kerlin is the financial provider for our family of four young children and until he returns, we need help from our community to pay our bills and feed our family. We are very grateful for any help you can offer.”
After this arrest, in an interview with WAPT News, Parker provided the media with Moreno’s employment authorization card. ICE Public Affairs Officer Lindsay Williams told the Mississippi Free Press that the presence of such a card does not imply legal residence in the United States.
“ (If someone) came here illegally, he can be charged with USC §1325, illegal entry. He’s then in proceedings, and in proceedings you can ask for an authorization to work, which they can give you because you have to be able to support yourself,” Williams explained. “If you had no money, you could, you know, turn to crime or whatever.”
Williams was already familiar with the case and provided the Mississippi Free Press with a statement on behalf of ICE.
“Kerlin Moreno-Orellana, 35, a citizen and national of Honduras, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement June 19, following his release from the Hinds County Jail, where he was encountered after his arrest for Unlawful to Throw, Scatter, Spill, Place Solid Waste on Public Hwy/Street, in State Water, on Private Property,” the statement read.
The ICE detainer, the agency asserted, followed a previous arrest for unspecified traffic violations.
“He was previously arrested by ICE Sept. 26, 2019, following his release from the Madison County Jail after he was arrested by U.S. Park Rangers for traffic violations,” it continued. “Moreno was released from ICE custody on bond on Nov. 13, 2019, pending further removal proceedings. His recent arrest violates the conditions of his Nov. 13, 2019 bond and it warranted a redetermination of his custody. He is being held in ICE custody pending further removal proceedings before the Executive Office for Immigration Review.”
ICE declined to provide further details on Moreno-Orellana’s arrest, and the National Park Service did not respond to the Mississippi Free Press’ inquiries by press time.
But an intake sheet in possession of the Madison County Sheriff’s department explains further. Park rangers arrested Moreno-Orellana in 2019 and charged him with speeding, having an expired tag, and lacking a driver’s license. Melanie Benn, records clerk at Madison County, explained that Moreno-Orellana was likely arrested on the Natchez Trace.
From there, ICE arrested Kerlin Moreno-Orellana and sent him to Jena for the first time, where ICE processed him and he bonded out; the government allowed him to remain in the United States while his immigration case was adjudicated, conditions that ICE states his most current detainment has violated.
It is not impossible for such a detained individual to receive bond again, but in the second Trump era, there are new barriers to overcome.
“There have been changes in the law,” Dickson explained. “What it depends on is if he’s been put in expedited removal. If he’s been placed in expedited removal in the past, he’s not eligible for bond.”
During his re-election campaign, Trump promised to launch “the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America,” even threatening to enact the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 statute that has been enacted only three times in U.S. history to hurry deportations to prevent foreign espionage in times of war.
Last month, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled that Trump’s use of the law to deport 140 Venezuelan men flown from the U.S. to El Salvador in March was illegal, but did not suggest that the administration return the men to the U.S.
While immigrants and migrants from countries like Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua have said that they live in fear that they might be torn from their families and deported out of the U.S., Trump openly welcomed white South Africans who he claimed faced “racial discrimination” in their home country.
“The Supreme Court has effectively greenlit deportation orders for an estimated half a million people, the largest such de-legalization in the modern era,” Karen Tumlin, a lawyer at Justice Action Center who represents affected immigrants, told NBC News on May 30.
Although Trump has argued that these efforts are necessary to root out criminals and threats to U.S. public safety, many of those migrants—undocumented and otherwise—have clean records, the BBC reported on June 11. That report cited data from The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a project from Syracuse University that compiles immigration figures.
As part of the Trump administration’s mandate to increase deportations to a quota of 3,000 per day, ICE has significantly increased its detention of immigrants with no criminal convictions, often abducting them at regularly scheduled meetings with other immigration agencies. While the Trump administration has made an elaborate show of deporting immigrants it claims are members of Central American gangs, the majority of new detentions are among undocumented workers with no charges or any alleged gang affiliations.
Trump’s aggressive policies and his blanket characterizations of Black and brown immigrants and migrants as criminals have sparked protests across the country.
“Arrests and detention are a priority,” Amanda Schuft, director of legal services for Immigrant Defenders Law Center, told the LA Public Press on June 13. “Upholding people’s rights within that process and humanity have not been a priority.”
‘A Very Dangerous Situation’
Allegations of nonviolent traffic violations and illegal dumping, whether at the behest of an employer or not, are the kinds of mundane infractions that are making immigrants across the country targets in the Trump administration’s endeavor to enact a mass deportation regime.
“There have been many efforts from this administration to dehumanize people. These are people with family members,” Dickson said. Many immigrants, particularly those from Honduras, face enormous risks if deported to their country of origin.
On Thursday, June 19, members of the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equality who called for Kerlin Moreno-Orellana’s release said that his citizenship status is irrelevant.
“This is a country of immigrants,” IAJE’s Lauren Lewis said. “When the pioneers did it, it was called manifest destiny.”
She urged city leaders to “keep ICE out of Jackson.” Members of the organization and Moreno-Orellana’s family now fear that he will be deported, leaving his loved ones, including his youngest child, who is less than a year old, behind.
“Mr. Kerlin left (Honduras) for a reason. He was on his way to gaining residency (in the U.S.). He could be put in a very dangerous situation. We don’t know where he’ll end up,” Lewis said.
What comes next for Moreno-Orellana is difficult to predict; detained immigrants have reported wildly different experiences with the deportation process under the current regime, with some experiencing a speedy removal to their country of origin and others languishing for months in detention centers.
Though ICE is the agency that detained him, a judge with the Executive Office for Immigration Review will oversee Moreno-Orellana’s detention and possible deportation.
Correction: An earlier version of this story said K and J are Kerlin Moreno-Orellana’s two oldest children; they are his oldest sons, but his daughter is his oldest child.