After being deported from Minnesota last week, a young mother says she’s back in Honduras without her 8-month-old child.
Kimberlyn Yaritza Menjivar Aguilar, 22, lived in St. Cloud with her partner. They moved to South Dakota shortly before having a child in March.
In a Zoom conversation translated from Spanish to English from her parents’ house in Honduras, Menjivar Aguilar told WCCO about the moment she was detained by federal agents at a September fingerprinting appointment for an approved work permit.
“‘Is this your baby?’ I said yes. And soon after they asked if I was breastfeeding. I said no,” said Menjivar Aguilar through a translator. “They arrested me in handcuffs behind my back.”
Kimberlyn Yaritza Menjivar Aguilar 
Kelly Clark is Menjivar Aguilar’s immigration lawyer.
“She signed something that they told her was, ‘If you are removed you can take your baby with you,’ and she signed that document, but at the end she was removed without her baby,” Clark said.
Menjivar Aguilar explains her two-week journey to the U.S. when she was 17, crossing the Rio Grande with her younger brother, all to escape a gang who was trying to recruit them, and to be with their dad in the U.S. He’s since been deported, too.
The assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released this statement: “On September 29, ICE arrested Kimberlyn Yaritza Menjivar Aguilar, an illegal alien from Honduras. She illegally entered the U.S. on April 13, 2021, near Eagle Pass, Texas, and was RELEASED into this country by the Biden administration. She received full due process and was ordered removed by an immigration judge on October 12, 2022. This administration is not going to ignore the rule of law.”
Kimberlyn Yaritza Menjivar Aguilar 
Her lawyer confirms she had the outstanding order of removal from 2022 after missing a court date, which Menjivar Aquilar says she didn’t know about as her father handled her documents and mail.
“After that removal order happened, she was given deferred action, which is literally a ‘we’re not going to deport you,'” Clark said. “It is discretionary. It can be revoked, but it wasn’t revoked”
“All I want is to be with my family, my baby and my partner,” Menjivar Aguilar said.
When Menjivar Aguilar was detained in September, she was approved for a special immigrant juvenile visa. Her attorney is now working with the family to see if they can get her and her baby back together.
