Update:ICE says it will release Florence mom with legal DACA status, sources say

Federal immigration police continued to move fast Wednesday in efforts to deport a mother with two young children despite her legal status.

Agents seized a 22-year-old Northern Kentucky mother, Riccy Enriquez Perdomo, last week and moved her Wednesday morning to her fourth jail since her arrest Thursday.

U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) moved Enriquez to the McHenry County Jail northwest of Chicago. It is the last domestic stop for detainees in the Chicago ICE region before deportation.

ICE would not confirm her current location Wednesday or whether the agency intends to deport her.

Enriquez, the married mother of two children, ages 5 and 11 months, is a two-time recipient of legal status through the DACA program. Otherwise known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, it was created in 2012 through an executive order by President Barack Obama to provide temporary relief for young adults who had been brought illegally into the country as children.

Enriquez received a work permit through DACA and was employed at Amazon in Hebron, Kentucky, until the birth of her infant son, Rony.

President Donald Trump said in July that he is wrestling with DACA and calls it "a decision that is very, very hard to make." Immigrant advocates say Trump's administration is disregarding DACA protections, deporting people granted status under it and other undocumented immigrants who've committed no crimes in the United States.

Enriquez, a Honduran national, was 9 when she crossed the U.S.'s southern border in 2004 with an uncle and two of her sisters. She received DACA status in 2015, and her renewal was approved Jan. 31, according to Don Sherman, a local immigrant rights activist and lawyer.

The initial DACA application and renewals cost $495 each.

She had previously been under a deportation order before receiving DACA status.

ICE attorneys told her Wednesday that her lawyers need to file a motion to reopen her 2004 case. Rita Cote, of Mount Healthy, Enriquez's older sister, spoke with her by phone Wednesday from prison.

Federal agents arrested her Aug. 17, in Louisville. She had gone to an immigration office there to post bond for another immigrant who was eligible for release. Enriquez went, says her family, because she was confident in her legal status.

"They asked for her information when she posted the bond and then told her she didn't have DACA," said her brother-in-law, Robert Cote, of Mount Healthy.

"We called ICE in Chicago, and the person there told us, `When Trump came in, DACA doesn't exist anymore.' I couldn't believe they told me that."

More:Judge reopens case of undocumented East Price Hill man; family posts bond

A public affairs spokeswoman at the Chicago immigration office referred The Enquirer to a "detainee" search function at www.ice.gov that was malfunctioning Wednesday morning. An ICE spokesman in Detroit was unavailable. Another ICE public affairs officer in Washington, D.C., did not respond to an email request for information.

"This is not the first time this year that ICE has misrepresented the situation on DACA for several immigrants around the country," Sherman said.

He said he completed and filed Enriquez's DACA forms and confirmed Tuesday with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that she has legal status under DACA.

Her case is similar to that of a 23-year-old DACA recipient in San Diego.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in California said he was preparing to order the Trump administration to return Juan Manuel Montes to the United States from Mexico. U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel said he needs to hear directly from Montes. Montes's lawyers said ICE unlawfully deported him in February. ICE officials said Montes voluntarily left the country and gave up his DACA protection.

Curiel drew the ire of then-candidate Trump in 2016 over Curiel's handling of a suit against Trump University.

Under the direction of the Trump administration, ICE officials have said there are "no more exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement." Despite record numbers of deportations during Obama's two terms, his administration focused removal efforts on undocumented immigrants with felonies or serious misdemeanor convictions.

Family members of Enriquez are angry with ICE because it keeps moving her and has detained her in four locations since her Thursday arrest. They took her first to the federal detention facility at the Boone County Jail in Northern Kentucky before moving her to Clay County, Indiana, and then Chicago.

Rita Cote, now 32, crossed the border with her mother in 2000 and has DACA status, too. She was been detained by federal officials in 2009, when the family lived in Orlando, Florida. The sisters' mother lives in Norwood.

In all, 23 members of the extended family live in Greater Cincinnati.

"Everybody is freaking out," said Robert Cote, Rita's U.S.-born husband. "This family is like a litter of puppies. When one of them is missing, everyone searches frantically for it."

The family has a local attorney, Teresa Cunningham, and is working with the National Immigration Law Center office in Los Angeles, which is also representing Montes in San Diego.

Advocates and family members in Greater Cincinnati are in contact with U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who introduced federal legislation in 2001 known as the Dream Act. It would provide temporary legal status and a path to citizenship for young people brought into the country illegally as children, like Enriquez.

Durbin's office released a statement from the senator late Wednesday about the case.

"I am disturbed by reports that a Dreamer with DACA protection has been detained," it reads. "My office is in touch with ICE for an explanation. When he was Secretary of (the Department of Homeland Security), White House Chief of Staff John Kelly assured me that no one with DACA would lose this protection unless they violated the terms of the program, and I intend to hold him to that commitment."

Durbin and U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., introduced updated Dream Act legislation in July. Rita Cote said she spoke Wednesday with an aide in Durbin's Chicago office.

Enriquez's family also is seeking help from Ohio's senators, Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Sherrod Brown.

A national non-profit group seeking immigration policy change, America's Voice, took up Enriquez's cause Wednesday. It circulated a press release nationally and will hold an 11 a.m. news conference Thursday about her case.

On Wednesday, America's Voice deputy director Lynn Tramonte expressed frustration over the Trump administration's disregard for DACA protections.

"It's not supposed to be this way," she told The Enquirer. "It appears now ICE agents feel they can do whatever they want."

Reached Tuesday night at their Florence home, Enriquez's husband, Rony, said he is sad and worried that his wife will be deported. He is undocumented.

Family members describe Riccy Enriquez Perdomo as a devout Christian who holds religious services for up to 30 people in her living room.

"Of all people, this is the last person you need to fear," said Richard Cote. "She always does the right thing."