A Gresham family has returned to Oregon after spending three weeks in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention in Texas, U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter said in a social media post Saturday.
“The Crespo-Gonzalez family is home,” Dexter said. “Our community refused to stay silent in the face of such an immoral, unethical detention. Now, we must continue speaking up for the countless other families and children imprisoned by Trump.”
Darianny Liseth Gonzalez de Crespo, her husband, Yohendry de Jesus Crespo, and their 7-year-old daughter were detained on Jan. 16 outside Adventist Health in Southeast Portland. The parents were trying to take their daughter to see a doctor for a severe nosebleed.
The Crespo-Gonzalez family has a pending court date in an asylum case after fleeing political violence in Venezuela.
Dexter, one of six Democratic physicians serving in Congress, traveled to detention center in Dilley, Texas on Thursday. On Friday, she announced that Crespo-Gonzalez family was released from detention and that she was escorting them back to Oregon.
According to Dexter and the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition, the couple took their daughter to the hospital for a nosebleed when they were surrounded by U.S. Border Patrol agents and taken into custody before the child could be treated.
In a statement, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the family was detained because they entered the U.S. illegally and were released through the CBP One app.