Edward said they have legal paperwork with validity till 2030. They are traumatized, Warner said adding that his wife was whispering in the phone so that officials could not overhear their conversation. They have been told they would be released if they self-deported, according to reports.
Ayla Luca, a seven-year-old Canadian child, originally from British Columbia, has been arrested by the ICE along with her mother and sent to a notorious detention center in Texas. Luca is autistic and came to the US five years ago when her mother Tania Warner married Edward Warner, a US citizen.
The family lives in Kingsville, Texas, and were driving home from a baby shower in Raymondville on 14 March when they were stopped at a border patrol checkpoint in Sarita.
Tania’s cousin Amber Sinclair told the Guardian that Tania has a social security card and a functional visa. Vicente Gonzalez, a Democratic congressman for Texas’s 34th congressional district, said in a statement that his office was working for the family’s release. “Tania has a work permit and is part of the fabric of our Kingsville community; she nor her daughter Ayla, a 7-year-old with autism, should be in detention,” he said. “We must bring them home and reunite yet another family being ripped apart by this Administration’s rogue immigration enforcement operations,” he said.
The family is now raising money to pay for legal help.