Emerson Colindres reflects on ‘traumatizing’ ordeal after Ice sent him to Honduras despite having no criminal record
The Ohio high school graduate and soccer standout who was recently deported from the US to Honduras despite having no arrest record has described being “handcuffed like we’re some big criminals” for the entirety of his deportation flight.
“To me, it was kind of more traumatizing because I haven’t been to my birth country in years,” Emerson Colindres, 19, who was brought from Honduras to the US by his family at age eight, said to the Cincinnati news station WCPO in an interview over the weekend.
He also told the outlet that his pre-deportation detention before leaving the US was “mentally draining”, mainly because he spent all but two hours daily sitting in a jail cell “doing nothing”.
Colindres’s remarks to WCPO were some of his first about an experience vividly contradicting claims that the immigration crackdown spearheaded by Donald Trump since he began his second presidency in January has prioritized targeting dangerous criminals.
