A Texas woman who drove to Mexico to deliver Christmas gifts to a sprawling refugee camp housing people waiting for US court dates on Wednesday said that she was detained by authorities there for two days.
Anamichelle Castellano said that she and another volunteer for her nonprofit group were stopped on Monday at a bridge crossing from Brownsville, Texas, to Matamoros, Mexico.
Authorities discovered a small box of ammunition inside the vehicle that she was driving, she said, adding that it had been left there by her husband.
Photo: Reuters
Mexico has strict laws against entering the country with guns or ammunition. Those laws occasionally ensnare Americans crossing the border.
Castellano said that she spent Monday night sleeping on a couch with her nine-year-old daughter in a government office.
She gave a statement on Tuesday to someone who she believed to be a prosecutor, then was allowed to leave a few hours later.
Castellano and her husband operate a nonprofit called the Socorro Foundation. They are among the volunteers trying to help thousands of parents and children waiting in Mexican border towns to seek asylum in US immigration courts.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has prevented many asylum seekers from entering the country, or removed them from the US, while their cases are still pending under a policy known as “Remain in Mexico.”
“Our faith is very strong,” said her father, Genaro Lopez, on Wednesday. “God didn’t blink. He had a plan.”
Castellano said that she and a group of volunteers had worked late into the night to wrap presents for children at the Matamoros camp, which consists of hundreds of tents pitched on land next to the Rio Grande, the river separating the US and Mexico in Texas.
She said that she had vehicle trouble early on Monday and ended up driving her husband’s, while her husband eventually took hers, adding that they split about 300 gifts between the two.
While her husband drove into Matamoros without incident, an official told Castellano that her vehicle would require extra screening.
When she was told that officers would unwrap all the gifts in her vehicle to check them for anything dangerous, she consented to the officers using an X-ray machine to examine the vehicle.
That scan uncovered a small box of ammunition, which she described as about the size of the palm of a hand.
Castellano said that she did not know about the box until the scan and did not mean to transport it.
She was told conflicting information during the two days about whether she could leave or if she would be imprisoned. She identified officers from at least three agencies who asked her questions.
Ultimately, she was told that she and the other volunteer could leave if they paid US$8,000, but the fee was eventually lowered to about US$4,000, and her husband paid US$3,000.
She was told that she might have to return to see a judge in Reynosa, which she said she would do as soon as a court date was issued.
“I serve refugees,” she said. “To tell me that I can’t go back, and give them their gifts and their needed supplies, I can’t risk that.”
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