Jakadrien Turner: from what I've been able to piece together... correct me if I'm wrong

[Zalatix]

The story of Jakadrien Turner, the teenager who got arrested, deported to Colombia and is now back in the U.S., seems to thinly veil a few really big issues. I'll get into them later but FIRST I need to verify that what I understand of this story, is actually true:

Jakadrien Turner ran away from home. She later got busted committing a crime. While in custody she claimed to be someone of a different name. This, instead of giving her real name. At no time is it shown that she asked for her parents to be involved.

Jakadrien Turner got deported to Colombia. She was welcomed under some kind of new or returning citizen program. She was promptly given a job at a call center.

She was exposed by a Facebook post, and returned to the U.S.

Is this correct?

[Jumping John]

1. So you need other people to verify the facts that you have gathered? Why is that? eom

[surfdog]

9. I would suspect...

The OP is trying to get certain people to admit to the facts instead of sweeping them under the rug

This thread proves his point

[trumad]

2. Ugg

Really ugg.

What you are doing here is quite obvious.

You post everything negative about the FOURTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL... and then ask DU'ers for verification.

Google is your friend pal...try using it.

[obamanut2012]

4. Yup, especially like "was exposed"

Ugg indeed.

[surfdog]

7. What's wrong ?

It's 100% fact , she was exposed

[obamanut2012]

11. Oh surfdog, you love my posts so much!

[surfdog]

14. I was just correcting you

It's a fact that her lie was exposed

to claim otherwise is absurd

[Zalatix]

29. Actually, you have a few things wrong. NOT THAT ANYONE'S GOING TO READ!!!

It appears to me that this girl had one HELL of a bad home life, one that was so bad that she, not being an idiot by any stretch of the imagination, refused to bring her parents into the situation even when she was arrested.

Then she went and got a JOB in Colombia while not speaking a lick of the native language.

She got a job, and now she's back in America where she probably won't be able to get a job when she comes of age. And she's back with a family that clues suggest she was desperate to get away from.

I'm not seeing anything negative about her. I am seeing negative things that she seems to have run away from.

[pinboy3niner]

40. Do you have any facts to support your "one HELL of a bad home life" conclusion?

From the reporting I've seen, Jakadrien had gone through the death of her grandfather and the divorce of her parents. But I may have missed reports of her terrible home life. Do you have the details and a link?

[Zalatix]

49. A divorce that was so bad that she didn't ask for her parents when she got busted?

The explanation doesn't fly.

[pinboy3niner]

51. So it's nothing more than idle speculation

Thanks--that answers my question.

[surfdog]

55. Wow

You claimed the OP had things wrong then you posted a long-winded post that didn't point out any things that he had wrong

Wtf is wrong with people ?

if OP had errors then simply point them out

[hobbit709]

3. WTF?

[obamanut2012]

5. No, you have the facts quite wrong

Maybe you need to go research the case a little more.

[surfdog]

8. Oh please

The OP said "correct me if I'm wrong" ..you took the time to post just to tell him how wrong he was , why don't you tell him what's right ?

That's what I thought.

[trumad]

10. The old "correct me if I'm wrong" canard...

It's like the old "Some people say" canard at Fox news.

[obamanut2012]

12. There you are again, Surfdog!

I was going to explain the old passive-aggressive "correct me if I'm wrong," but I see Trumad did that for me.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. This implies that you know 'the facts'

Which puts you, it seems to me, ahead of the US and Colombian authorities, and possibly the family too. Maybe you should enlighten everyone.

The fundamental question which needs to be answered is 'why did the girl give someone's name, and then go along with the deportation as someone else?' I can't find any satisfactory suggestion for that, yet.

[surfdog]

15. I agree

"The fundamental question which needs to be answered is 'why did the girl give someone's name, and then go along with the deportation as someone else?' I can't find any satisfactory suggestion for that, yet."

I would like to hear the spin on that one

[obamanut2012]

16. I have the facts as they've been presented so far

By both sides and by her family.

The OP doesn't have facts, but rather spin, as I think is apparent from their OP. I do not believe this 14-year-old is deserving of this spin. She was a victim of ICE and the Colombian government.

[surfdog]

17. I'm begging you now...

Please point out the spin you keep talking about

[muriel_volestrangler]

32. Just give up the "I know everything" claims

when you haven't even bothered setting out what you claim to know. If she was a victim of the authorities, why didn't she give her real identity at some point? She either decided, or someone persuaded her (as a vulnerable teenager), to stick with the false identity.

You're in the dark on this too.

[SoCalDem]

26. Possibly because she was a pissed off/scared teenager

who **may** have thought that going to South America was an "adventure" she preferred to juvenile hall and a return to the hum-drum quality of life as she knew it?

Being a young teen means sometimes making really bad decisions.

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. And that's my point - 'possibly' and 'may'

and in that case, she wouldn't be a 'victim', as obamanut2012 calls her.

[jberryhill]

6. Not seeing a "thinly veiled" anything

There is no justification for deporting a 14 year old US citizen to Colombia.

None.

Whether a 14 year old did anything foolish in the process is beside the point. 14 year olds do a lot of foolish things. It's the adults who are to avoid doing foolish things in response.

[Starry Messenger]

18. +1000

[surfdog]

19. Did they know she was 14?

Maybe the persons name she gave to them came up with a different age

You are implying she gave her correct name and age

[starroute]

20. And that matters how?

I'm sure that illegal immigrants frequently attempt to provide false identities when arrested. It's the job of the police and ICE to check these things out and determine that the dude using some dead guy's social security number isn't really who he says he is.

But somehow one 14 year old runaway offers a false name with no supporting documentation and the authorities are helpless to see through her clever ruse?

Come on.

[surfdog]

22. Come on now let's be honest

Every day in this country illegal aliens give the name of a legal citizen to avoid being sent back to their home country

Rarely will the US citizen give the name of an illegal alien maybe it caught them offguard

The bottom line is if she didn't lie she wouldn't of been deported

How could ICE have known she was an American citizen and 14 years old ?

[Edweird]

23. ICE is concerned about the identity of people coming IN - not going out.

[Honeycombe8]

24. The story I read said she gave the name & 25 year old age of someone...

who was an illegal immigrant from Columbia. Story didn't say whether the girl had met that person, and therefore used that woman's name & age, or just made it up, and it happened to match someone on a list.

But she didn't speak Spanish, so it would've been easy to verify whether she really was from Columbia by trying to converse with her in Spanish. But maybe she refused to converse. The story I read was pretty short, and all details weren't filled in. It shouldn't have happened. But it doesn't sound like what some people are making it out to be, which is that they ran across this girl, picked her up, and just gave her a false name & age and decided to deport her. That's clearly not what happened.

[XemaSab]

50. I can see keeping silent for a little while

but one would think that as soon as someone said "Hey, do you want to use the bathroom?" the ruse would have been up.

[jberryhill]

28. Go have sex with a lying 14 year old and see if that helps you

It's not a defense and how you get that implication out of what I said is a mystery.

[obamanut2012]

38. That's actually an excellent point

About the only way to legally MAYBE get out of it is if the girl showed you a fake driver's license or passport.

[jberryhill]

39. Nope

Strict liability. Mistake of age is not a defense.

[obamanut2012]

42. Interesting

I've always wondered about that, if someone has a fake ID that's a real ID (you know how I mean that), what the law says about that.

[jberryhill]

43. In what state do you live?

What "the law says" depends on what state you are talking about.

[Honeycombe8]

21. The story I read said she gave the name AND age of someone else. She didn't reference her parents..

because she didn't live with her parents or have parents, or something. It was her grandmother who had reported her missing and was looking for her.

[surfdog]

25. That's no excuse

The police should've just waved their magical wand and found out the truth

[jberryhill]

30. They had fingerprints of the Colombian in question

Can you tell me how they had the name and age of the illegal immigrant in the first place?

You think there is just some list of illegal aliens so that ICE can send birthday cards or something?

[surfdog]

35. Moving the goalposts now ...

You said there is no justification for deporting a 14 year old

How could they know she was 14 ?

They could have found out the name and age she gave was bogus , but how would they know she was 14 ?

[jberryhill]

36. Oh, okay, so....

Every person in custody whose fingerprints do not match those of a 22 year old Colombian with a criminal record should be sent to Colombia.

Got it.

[surfdog]

37. I simply asked...

How would they know she was 14 ?

[starroute]

48. Look at her teeth maybe?

I know, they wouldn't normally think to do something like that. But any dentist could identify a fourteen year old because her wisdom teeth would be unerupted or at most newly erupted.

The point is that if they'd had the slightest suspicion, it's not hard to tell a 14 year old from a 22 year old. And you'd think that anybody who spent any time with her at all would notice her lack of a Hispanic accent, etc. and do some elementary checking.

[surfdog]

56. Jeeesh

Now we are faulting ice because they didn't check her teeth ?

[Honeycombe8]

41. The article I read didn't say. Maybe a criminal record? All the details are not out yet.

So it's a little early to say exactly what happened.

It's clear that whoever deported her is at fault at least in some respect, since this shouldn't have happened. But this clearly wasn't INTENTIONAL, and the girl was at least partly at fault for trying to make them believe she was someone she wasn't, because she was a runaway.

I imagine the authorities have a lot of people on their hands to figure out what to do with them, and relatively few staff to handle it. Would you agree to increasing immigration's budget so they can hire more people? Considering the political climate in the southwest, it's not surprising this happened, I guess.

But when people in hiding go around giving fake identities, it's ludicrous to blame those who believe the con, except for being lazy or stupid not to doublecheck. More details are needed to know how this happened. I imagine heads are gonna roll.

[pinboy3niner]

44. According to ICE, the false name was a fabrication

ICE officials said that neither the name given nor Jakadrien's prints matched anyone in law enforcement databases.

In deporting her, ICE seems to have relied entirely on Jakadrien's statements without any independent corroboration or verification. Not even verification of her nationality from Colombia (which seems to have accepted her based solely on the U.S. government's assertion that she was a Colombian citizen).

[Honeycombe8]

54. I hope the Republicans don't use that as a reason to require a nat'l picture ID. nt

[surfdog]

27. the police should've known

She was an American citizen and 14 ?

I would like somebody to explain that

[October]

31. They seemed to "know" she was a 25-year old Colombian

The point is -- NOTHING was verified.

[riderinthestorm]

45. But they had the resources to KNOW she wasn't a 22 year old Colombian immigrant.

They had the Colombian woman's fingerprints. Before they deported anyone they should have made even the most basic cursory check to ensure this was the right person. The story even says they didn't wait for any fingerprint matches to come back before they put her on the plane.

What if the person they were deporting actually shared the same legal name as someone? Say I was picked up and held by ICE because my name is the same as another wanted person (I'm Irish). You'd think they would check to make sure my fingerprints matched the criminal illegal person before they spent the money to actually send me back.

It just makes sense.

But they didn't even follow that simple protocol here with this teen. That does NOT make sense.

[Starry Messenger]

34. A call center?

She was put to work as a maid, from the news reports.

Her home life appears loving to me, her grandmother and mother met her at the airport and brought the child's favorite blanket. She ran away from home because her grandfather, whom she loved, had died and her parents got divorced. Kids do weird stuff all the time, that's why we have different laws for dealing with minors. Who knows why she didn't contact them while she had run away, maybe she felt ashamed.

Her grandmother has been desperately trying to find her and discovered that she was in Colombia and had been deported by ICE. If ICE cannot foil the silly lies of a 14 year old, then I question their competency to be doing what they do at all. You're a serial killer and want to flee the country? Give a fake name to ICE and get a free trip to another country and a new start in life! It's their job to verify things, right? They failed mightilty.

[jberryhill]

47. The aspect of this I find most interesting

Is the extent of social services in Colombia, really.

[Zalatix]

53. Bingo!! Looks a lot better there than here.

[jberryhill]

57. If we are to believe the CO government

They say they set her up with a job, shelter, and counseling of some kind. If she'd gotten that in Texas, then we wouldn't be here.

There's a couple of ways this can go from here, and I hope the experience has enriched this girl's life and broadened her horizons in what ultimately turns out to her advantage in life. It certainly shouldn't have happened, and we may find out some things about the slipshod way these cases are handled. But she sure has had an education.