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The Bulwark: How ICE Tried--and Failed--to Send a Torture Victim to Mexico
The Bulwark - How ICE Tried—and Failed—to Send a Torture Victim to Mexico
An asylum seeker from Colombia had a court order preventing her deportation. Immigration agents didn’t seem to care.
Adrian Carrasquillo
Apr 02, 2025
ON MARCH 27, ICE AGENTS LOADED Adriana Quiroz Zapata on a bus, drove her to Mexico, and tried to dump her on the Mexican authorities. The Mexicans, after hearing Zapata’s story of police corruption, threats, torture, and sexual violence spanning years, refused to accept her. They sent her, the ICE agents, and their bus back across the border.
Zapata’s story is just the latest example of a pattern that has emerged early in the Trump administration’s push for mass deportations: Authorities scrambled haphazardly, accountability and oversight were inconsistent at best, and along the way, they likely violated the law, not to mention the rights of a vulnerable, lawful immigrant who’s been through hell.
Zapata is just one of a growing number who have been caught in the dragnet, but her saga illustrates the human costs of what the administration is doing. Now back in detention in El Paso, where she’s been since August 2024, she’s struggling with hyperthyroidism, hyperlipidemia, and prediabetes.
According to her niece, Monica Van Housen, Zapata never missed a Sunday Mass, and she loves her cat, Preciosa, whom she had to leave behind in Colombia. She’s a fan of vallenato music, is a stickler for cleanliness, and enjoys having her nails done and taking care of her hair.
In 2021, Zapata was in a relationship with Steev Manuel Puello Restrepo whose father, Carlos Puello, is a high-ranking lieutenant in the Colombian national police and a member of a wealthy and influential family, according to immigration court documents. When the couple tried to claim asylum in the United States that year, Restrepo passed the test to establish “credible fear” in his home country and was allowed to enter the United States. Zapata did not, her lawyer, Lauren O’Neal, said. So Zapata was sent back to Colombia while Restrepo remained in the United States.
/snip
An asylum seeker from Colombia had a court order preventing her deportation. Immigration agents didn’t seem to care.
Adrian Carrasquillo
Apr 02, 2025
ON MARCH 27, ICE AGENTS LOADED Adriana Quiroz Zapata on a bus, drove her to Mexico, and tried to dump her on the Mexican authorities. The Mexicans, after hearing Zapata’s story of police corruption, threats, torture, and sexual violence spanning years, refused to accept her. They sent her, the ICE agents, and their bus back across the border.
Zapata’s story is just the latest example of a pattern that has emerged early in the Trump administration’s push for mass deportations: Authorities scrambled haphazardly, accountability and oversight were inconsistent at best, and along the way, they likely violated the law, not to mention the rights of a vulnerable, lawful immigrant who’s been through hell.
Zapata is just one of a growing number who have been caught in the dragnet, but her saga illustrates the human costs of what the administration is doing. Now back in detention in El Paso, where she’s been since August 2024, she’s struggling with hyperthyroidism, hyperlipidemia, and prediabetes.
According to her niece, Monica Van Housen, Zapata never missed a Sunday Mass, and she loves her cat, Preciosa, whom she had to leave behind in Colombia. She’s a fan of vallenato music, is a stickler for cleanliness, and enjoys having her nails done and taking care of her hair.
In 2021, Zapata was in a relationship with Steev Manuel Puello Restrepo whose father, Carlos Puello, is a high-ranking lieutenant in the Colombian national police and a member of a wealthy and influential family, according to immigration court documents. When the couple tried to claim asylum in the United States that year, Restrepo passed the test to establish “credible fear” in his home country and was allowed to enter the United States. Zapata did not, her lawyer, Lauren O’Neal, said. So Zapata was sent back to Colombia while Restrepo remained in the United States.
/snip