Trip to get green card ends up in Cottonwood Falls jail
Staff writer
Thinking she was starting her green-card process, Rosmery Alvarado traveled from Pittsburg, Kansas, to a U.S. Immigration Services office in Kansas City last week.
She instead was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and sent to Chase County Detention Center for seven days.
Alvarado’s daughter, Carina Moran, said her mother was detained after arriving for what she was told would be an interview that would begin her green card process.
“My dad was asked to step out of the office where my mom was sitting, and the second he did, she was detained by two immigration officers,” Moran wrote in a social media post. “She was taken out the back side of the building and put into a white van, and all we could do was watch.”
Alvarado’s husband, Nixon, who is from El Salvador, gained his U.S. citizenship in March.
Detention center director Jay Whitney confirmed that Alvarado, a Guatemalan immigrant, was kept at Chase County Detention Center from April 23 to 29.
The jail, located in Cottonwood Falls, is contracted by ICE to house detainees.
Tuesday, the jail was ordered to take Alvarado back to ICE’s Kansas City office, Whitney said.
After that, he said, he does not know where she was taken.
ICE did not respond to requests for comment.
Whitney said he was not aware of the full story surrounding Alvarado’s detainment.
“I don’t really know what’s going on,” he said. “I don’t know how this lady’s getting all this attention.”
After being provided with further context, Whitney noted that the detention center is not told why ICE sends them a detainee.
“I just have a contract to house her,” he said. “I don’t ask questions of how come you’re detaining her or how you’ve come to the conclusion to detain her. That’s on their end.”
Requests under state and federal open records acts for more information regarding Alvarado’s detainment and the contract between ICE and Chase County Detention Center have been submitted by the Record.