{"id":260094,"date":"2026-08-06T03:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T03:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/260094\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T03:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T03:54:07","slug":"argentine-asylum-seeker-detained-by-ice-at-philadelphia-airport-nbc10-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/260094\/","title":{"rendered":"Argentine asylum seeker detained by ICE at Philadelphia airport \u2013 NBC10 Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An Argentine woman living in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcphiladelphia.com\/tag\/south-philadelphia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">South Philadelphia<\/a> was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Philadelphia International Airport while awaiting an asylum interview, according to her attorney and family.<\/p>\n<p>Iliana Lick, 30, came to the United States from Argentina in 2023 on a tourist visa that was later extended. Her attorney said she was waiting for an asylum interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services when she was arrested on July 11.<\/p>\n<p>Lick&#8217;s boyfriend, Steven Mechiorre, said he drove her to Philadelphia International Airport that morning. After returning home, he received a phone call from Lick.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I pick it up and it&#8217;s Iliana crying, saying ICE arrested me,&#8221; Mechiorre said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was devastated at that moment because I knew that everything had changed at this point,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>According to Mechiorre, Lick has since been transferred through several detention centers in Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Texas. She is now being held in New Mexico while awaiting an immigration court hearing that has been postponed several times.<\/p>\n<p>The uncertainty has also weighed heavily on her family in Argentina.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The feeling of uncertainty has been awful because you don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going to happen or how this will all end,&#8221; her father, Luis Lick, said.<\/p>\n<p>Lick&#8217;s immigration attorney, Ana Ferreira, said the arrest came as a surprise.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is shocking. I&#8217;ve been doing this for 11 years and we never encountered anything like this before,&#8221; Ferreira said.<\/p>\n<p>Ferreira said people in circumstances similar to Lick&#8217;s had previously been able to travel domestically without incident but that she has recently seen more arrests like this.<\/p>\n<p>According to Ferreira, Lick &#8220;was never even one day unlawfully&#8221; in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She was doing everything that she could possibly be doing to try to remain in the U.S. lawfully,&#8221; Ferreira said.<\/p>\n<p>Lick&#8217;s father described his daughter as a law-abiding person who has never had legal problems in Argentina or the United States.<\/p>\n<p>He said he hopes her character and good behavior will help resolve the case so she can continue pursuing her dreams.<\/p>\n<p>This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC Philadelphia. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC Philadelphia journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Argentine woman living in South Philadelphia was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Philadelphia International&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[741,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-260094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-immigration","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}