The business administration student arrived in the U.S. from Colombia in 2022, De Bremaeker said. He said she overstayed her visa and applied for asylum based on experiencing “severe gender-based violence” in her home country, an application that is still pending. She had a valid work permit, De Bremaeker said, and had attended San Jose City College before transferring to Berkeley where she was conducting research on artificial intelligence.
On Friday night, her boyfriend Anthony said, the couple had arrived early at the airport for a weekend getaway that he hoped would help take Albornoz Hernandez’s mind off her heavy course load. They were waiting in the gate area, he said, when an ICE agent in plain clothes approached Albornoz Hernandez and asked her name, saying she looked familiar. Without identifying himself as working for ICE, the agent guessed a couple of different names, Anthony said, to which Albornoz Hernandez said no.
The third time, Anthony said, he guessed right. Once Albornoz Hernandez confirmed her name, ICE agents separated the couple, then told Albornoz Hernandez that her visa was expired and they were going to detain her, Anthony said. ...
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Albornoz Hernandez spent most of the weekend at Stockton Detention Center, De Bremaeker said, before being taken to California City, a facility northeast of Los Angeles where earlier this year, a court-ordered investigation found major flaws in the medical care provided to people detained there.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security confirmed by email that ICE agents had detained Albornoz Hernandez at SFO.
ICE arrests 23-year-old UC Berkeley student and asylum seeker at San Francisco airport
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