{"id":407974,"date":"2026-09-23T06:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T06:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/407974\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T06:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T06:12:12","slug":"stand-up-for-sirena-faith-leaders-hold-vigil-for-broward-mom-business-owner-detained-by-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/407974\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Stand up for Sirena’: Faith leaders hold vigil for Broward mom, business owner detained by ICE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faith leaders, advocates, and others held a candlelight vigil in Pompano Beach Tuesday night to draw attention to a Pompano Beach mother facing deportation to a country she left as a baby \u2014 even though vigil organizers contend she’s a lawful permanent U.S. resident.<\/p>\n

Sirena Prosper, 47, a local business owner and mother of seven, was recently apprehended and detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and remains in ICE custody, said vigil organizers.<\/p>\n

“Sirena Prosper’s story is about more than immigration status,” organizers said in a statement calling for her release. “It is about a mother and her children, a business owner and her community, and a family facing the possibility of being separated from one another.”<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Exiled Nicaraguan journalist detained by ICE in Florida. He could be deported to country he escaped<\/a><\/p>\n

Prosper is listed as a detainee at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, according to the ICE Online Detainee Locator System. It is a GEO Group-run ICE facility for women.<\/p>\n

ICE: She’s a criminal illegal alien from Haiti’<\/p>\n

A spokesman for ICE told WLRN that Prosper is “a criminal illegal alien from Haiti [who] was arrested by ICE officers during a targeting enforcement action in Pompano Beach.”<\/p>\n

“Prosper has an extensive criminal record including convictions for burglary of a residence, resisting an officer, larceny and burglary,” the ICE spokesman said in an e-mailed statement to WLRN. Details of the conviction were not disclosed.<\/p>\n

The ICE spokesman said Prosper legally entered the country, but was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge two decades ago, and will be removed from the U.S.<\/p>\n

“ICE will continue to execute the Trump administration\u2019s enforcement priorities by identifying, arresting and removing illegal aliens who violate U.S. law,” the spokesman said.<\/p>\n

“Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.,” the spokesman added. “We will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you.<\/p>\n

Organized with support from Faith in Florida and Faith in Action, the “Stand Up for Sirena” <\/a>vigil called for Prosper\u2019s rlease from ICE custody so she can return home to her children. Six of her children are U.S. citizens, three of whom are minors. <\/p>\n

“Tonight’s vigil is very important because we wanna [bring] awareness to this matter \u2014 not just for my Aunt Serena, but for the whole community itself,” said Sirena Prosper’s niece, Marie.
“This is happening to a lot of people. They’re being taken away from their family.”<\/p>\n

Prosper brought to U.S. as a baby<\/p>\n

Prosper has lived in the United States since she was six months old and later became a lawful permanent resident, according to vigil organizers, who said she has called the U.S. home for nearly her entire life.<\/p>\n

The ICE spokesman said Prosper was ordered by an immigration judge to be deported on Jan. 9, 2002.<\/p>\n

It’s unclear which country Prosper may be returned to because immigration records list her birthplace as Haiti rather than the Bahamas, say vigil organizers.<\/p>\n

Prosper is among tens of thousands of immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally to be arrested by ICE as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security reported <\/a>that ICE arrested nearly 51,000 immigrants in August, surpassing a record number in July for a single month.<\/p>\n

In August, ICE arrested 50,925\u00a0illegal aliens across the country, according to DHS, which said the previous record in July was 50,208 people.<\/p>\n

More than 3 million undocumented immigrants have left the United States since Trump took office in January 2025, DHS officials said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Faith leaders, advocates, and others held a candlelight vigil in Pompano Beach Tuesday night to draw attention to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-407974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}