{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hickenlooper.senate.gov/press_releases/hickenlooper-statement-on-news-of-durango-familys-return-to-colombia-without-wife-and-mother/", "Hickenlooper Statement on News of Durango Family\u2019s Return to Colombia Without Wife and Mother", "2025-11-19", "2025", "2025-11", "Democrat", "Senate", "CO", "John W. Hickenlooper", "H000273", "www.hickenlooper.senate.gov", "hickenlooper", "https://www.hickenlooper.senate.gov/press/page/", "scraper", "Hickenlooper: \u201cThe Trump administration turned Fernando and his children\u2019s dream into an American tragedy.\u201d\n\nWASHINGTON \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper released the following statement following Compa\u00f1eros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center\u2019s announcement that Fernando Jaramillo-Solano and his two minor children, Jana, age 12, and Kewin, age 15, agreed to return to Colombia. Fernando and his two children have been in ICE detention, separated from his wife and their mother, since October 27th.\n\n\u201cThe Trump administration turned Fernando and his children\u2019s dream into an American tragedy.\n\n\u201cThey forced a father and his 15- and 12-year-old kids to make an impossible choice: leave their wife and mother behind and return to a country where they don\u2019t feel safe; or remain indefinitely isolated in detention, separated from her.\n\n\u201cThey didn\u2019t care that they had been accepted into the asylum process and had no criminal history. They didn\u2019t care that Denver\u2019s third-ranking ICE official admitted that their arrest was a mistake.\n\n\u201cOur office worked day in and day out demanding answers from ICE, advocating for this family, and even spoke directly to Sec. Noem to demand they be released. They refused.\n\n\u201cOur fight is not over. We will continue to demand transparency from DHS regarding allegations of violence, and about what they did to this family.\n\n\u201cTwo innocent children will carry this trauma for the rest of their lives.\u201d\n\nOn October 27th, Fernando and his two children were arrested by ICE in Durango while Fernando was driving them to school. The children\u2019s mother wasn\u2019t notified of their arrest, and was unable to make contact with her son for several hours. When she finally spoke with her son, he described that he and his father experienced physical abuse while in ICE custody. Fernando\u2019s daughter, Jana, also reported physical abuse while in ICE detention. Fernando and his children are currently being held in an ICE detention center in Texas.\n\nGregory Davies, a senior ICE official in Denver, testified that this was a case of mistaken identity and the family was never the intended target. Despite these findings, Fernando and his children remain in detention.Senator Hickenlooper\u2019s office has been in close communication with the family\u2019s legal advocates, including Compa\u00f1eros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center and the family\u2019s lawyer in Texas, since their arrest. In October, Hickenlooper released a statement condemning the arrest and a video calling for the family\u2019s immediate release.\n\nOn November 6th, after the ICE field office failed to respond to the Senator\u2019s questions, Hickenlooper spoke over the phone with Secretary Noem, demanding that the entire family be released from ICE custody and specifically that the children be turned over to a trusted legal representative and then reunited with their mother.\n\nHickenlooper has consistently pressed ICE to follow the laws, including due process and humane treatment of detainees. In October, Hickenlooper visited the ICE detention center in Aurora to perform routine oversight and push for more transparency from ICE. Hickenlooper introduced the Immigration Enforcement Identification Act to increase transparency, accountability, and safety in immigration law enforcement. This bill prohibits law enforcement officers from obscuring their faces and requires that they clearly display their agency, name, and a unique identifier while conducting immigration enforcement functions. Last month, Hickenlooper joined 22 of his Senate colleagues to call out the Trump administration\u2019s recent efforts to arrest noncriminal immigrants at their immigration court hearings and deport them without adequate due process. In April, Hickenlooper joined 65 other members of Congress to urge Attorney General Pam Bondi to address the impact of the Executive Office for Immigration Review\u2019s (EOIR) alarming decision to fire key judges as the immigration system faces a staggering backlog of cases.\n\nHickenlooper\u2019s office and team of constituent advocates stand ready to help family members and detainees navigate the immigration system and address communication and process issues with ICE. Get in contact with our office at hickenlooper.senate.gov.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:52:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.hickenlooper.senate.gov/press_releases/hickenlooper-statement-on-news-of-durango-familys-return-to-colombia-without-wife-and-mother/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8133260998874903, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}