At the head of the controversy is Emerson Colindres, 19, a soccer player who graduated last month from Western Hills High School in Cincinnati. Colindres and his family came to the United States from Honduras in 2014 seeking asylum, according to reports.
Their case and appeal were denied and a removal order was issued two years ago. But the family, friends said, never were told to leave the country and they regularly checked in with ICE.
Colindres and his mother were informed they needed to check-in with ICE in person. During that meeting Colindres was taken into the back of the facility where agents were waiting to take him into custody. He has been jailed ever since.
Bryan Williams, who coached Colindres on the Cincy Galaxy club soccer team, said he has known the teen for 10 years and sometimes drove him to soccer practice.
He said Colindres was “following the process and doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing.”
He called Colindres, who hoped to play college soccer, “a great kid” who never got in trouble in school and had no criminal record.
“The last kid who deserves to be behind bars,” Williams said, wearing a “Free Emerson” T-shirt. “The system is broken; it’s inhumane.”
Drew Vasser, a spokesman for Cincinnati Socialists, said more than 300 detainees throughout Ohio are jailed in Butler County. He said immigrants shouldn’t be removed off the streets.
“Our neighbors matter to us,” Vasser said.
It’s time, Vasser said, for Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones to be removed from office and be replaced by someone selected by Butler County voters.
Many of the protesters wore black masks. Vasser, who wore a mask, pointed to two reasons: health concerns and protestors’ fears of being identified.
While Bill Stevison, 44, of Hamilton, didn’t wear a mask, he held a sign that in part read: “My tattoos do not make me a gang member.”
“I hate to see so much hate around immigrants,” he said. “We are all Americans.”
Dennis Scherer, 71, of Harrison, has followed the Colindres case and was driven to attend the rally in support of the teen.
“He doesn’t deserve being behind jail doors,” said Scherer. “I don’t think it’s right.”
Then Scherer shook his head. “This is not the country where I spent my 71 years. I don’t like what I see.”
Butler County commissioners approved the contract Jones has with the U.S. Marshals Service to house ICE prisoners in the Butler County jail. In the last week of May, 263 out of 940 jail inmates were ICE detainees.
Jones said he has 14 staffers in various stages of federal ICE training to help deport illegal immigrants. They will be able to handle paperwork and make arrests on ICE charges.
Commissioner Don Dixon told the Journal-News previously the commissioners “are not the judge or jury, we just protect our citizens and make space available for people who are charged with crimes and that’s pretty much the bottom line.”
As for canceling the sheriff’s ICE contract, “We don’t tell the sheriff what to do with the jail, he runs the jail. He’s the highest elected official in Butler County for law enforcement.”
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