Maribel Trujillo Diaz, the Butler County mother of four who was deported to her native Mexico in April 2017, is back in the United States.
According to her attorneys, Trujillo recently reunited with her family after 17 months of separation. A news release says she was "returned to the United States from Mexico to attend her ongoing immigration hearings at the Cleveland Immigration Court."
A prayer service is planned for Tuesday at 7 p.m. at St. Julie Billiart Parish in Hamilton. Trujillo is expected to speak at the event.
Maribel Trujillo Diaz came to the U.S. without documents in 2002. She'd been meeting regularly with ICE officials since being caught up in a raid on a food plant where she worked. A final deportation order was issued in 2014, but under the previous presidential administration, officials had not moved forward.
In early April 2017 she was picked up by ICE officials unexpectedly and scheduled to be deported. A three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled her emergency appeal for a stay of deportation was moot, effectively clearing the way for the deportation to move ahead despite a separate pending asylum request.
Ohio's two senators advocated on her behalf to no avail.
Trujillo has four children who are all U.S. citizens. The youngest, age 4, has seizures and requires special care, according to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, which also advocated on her behalf.
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