Colombian authorities Friday have handed over the Texan teen, who was mistakenly deported in April 2011, to U.S. authorities, Spanish news agency EFE reported.
According to government sources, officials from Colombia’s Family Welfare Institute (ICBF) and the Foreign Ministry placed 15-year-old Jakadrien Turner in the care of representatives from the U.S. Embassy in Colombia.
The hand-over took place at the Catam military airport in Bogota. The teenager expects to be collected by a U.S. aircraft and returned home. Upon arrival she is to be collected by Atlanta’s Office of Human Services.
The girl was arrested in Houston in April and gave a false name, that of a 22-year-old Colombian women with arrest warrants pending. The National Security Agency of the United Stated requested that Colombian Consulate in Houston, Texas then issued a provisional passport in order to deport her. Despite being a minor who spoke no Spanish, the girl was deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
From April 2011 Turner’s whereabouts were unknown but on December 1 she was taken into the care of the ICBF which placed her in a protection program.
The story was uncovered when Turner’s grandmother discovered her fake Colombian identity on Facebook.
