Teen Soccer ‘Phenom’ Deported Solo To Honduras After Attending ICE Check-In With Mom

A 19-year-old who came to the U.S. as a child more than a decade ago with his family was detained and deported back to his birth country alone last week following a routine check-in with U.S. immigration officials.

Emerson Colindres, who had no criminal record and graduated high school last month, was attending the check-in with his mother in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 4 when he was placed in handcuffs and taken to a county jail. He was held there for nearly two weeks before being deported, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

“I miss my mom,” the teenager said in a video call with FOX19 Now from Honduras following his deportation on Wednesday. “Obviously, I’m going to push through it because I have to, but I was just sad. I just need to see my mom and my sister. I miss them a lot.”

Ohio soccer coach Bryan Williams is seen with 19-year-old soccer player Emerson Colindres a few days before the teen was detained and then deported to Honduras.

Courtesy of Bryan Williams

Colindres’ mother was not detained with him, but both she and Colindres’ sister were given a deportation order a few days after his abrupt detention. They plan to reunite with him permanently in Honduras this week, the teen’s Cincinnati soccer coach, Bryan Williams, told HuffPost Monday.

“I was there when he was detained and one of the questions was, this doesn’t make sense, you’re taking essentially a kid, you’re putting him in jail and sending him back by himself,” said Williams. “They never told them they had to leave, just told them they had to keep checking in.”

Williams said Colindres, whom he called family after 10 years of soccer and car pooling to practices and games, said the teen was taken in by a distant family as it’s his first time in Honduras since leaving as a child. The pair briefly spoke on Sunday via FaceTime where they discussed his soccer prospects in his new home, including a potential tryout with a local team.

“He’s a phenomenal soccer player, and we were working to get him into college to play soccer. We were trying to figure out how to do that with his immigration status,” said Williams. “We got a couple offers, but he was detained before we could finalize those.”

Peers hold signs during a protest against the detention of Honduran teenager Emerson Colindres outside the Butler County Jail, in Hamilton, Ohio, on June 8.

Megan Jelinger / Reuters

According to the Enquirer, the family applied for asylum when they arrived in the U.S. in 2014, but their application was denied. They were given a final removal order in 2023 and had followed immigration protocols after.

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the teen’s removal and argued that “all illegal aliens are afforded due process,” with the Colindres family having been allowed to stay in the U.S. while their immigration case was ongoing.

“As is the law if you are in the country illegally and a judge has ordered you to be removed, that is precisely what will happen,” McLaughlin said in a statement to HuffPost Monday.

Colindres’ supporters say what happened to him was wrong, arguing that he and his family are not the criminals and bad actors that President Donald Trump vowed to go after. His friends and soccer teammates also argued that he didn’t choose to come to the U.S.

“It’s not like he had a say in whether he could or couldn’t come,” Braylen Nies-Williams told local station WCPO during a protest last Monday outside of the Butler County Jail in Hamilton, where the teen was being detained.

“He just lived his life, grew up as a kid,” added fellow teammate Josh Williams.

Local Rep. Greg Landsman (D) also argued that the teen’s deportation “isn’t making any of us safer or better.”

“Emerson came to SW Ohio as a young boy. He grew up here, went to school here, and played soccer with his friends here,” he said in a statement last week. “Tearing him away from his family won’t fix a broken system – it’s just cruel.”

Williams similarly emphasized the cruelty and heartbreak placed upon the teen’s family and community in a Facebook post last week. The post included their last photo taken together, when Colindres showed up for his son’s graduation.

“I hope you never have to experience a mother being told [they] are taking her child that didn’t do anything or seeing someone you love like your own child asking why, I didn’t do anything,” Williams wrote. “I’ve never been that angry and I hope to never be like that again.”