Immigration authorities released a Texas flight attendant Friday after she was detained for more than a month following a flight to Mexico. Selene Saavedra Roman – who is enrolled in the government's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program – was told by her employer that she would not have problems re-entering the United States after working the international route, attorney Belinda Arroyo said. Mesa Airlines chief executive Jonathan Ornstein later described the situation as an "administrative error." "She should have never been advised that she could travel," Arroyo said. "It was a big mistake." Saavedra Roman immigrated illegally to the U.S. as a child and is enrolled in the government's program for "Dreamers." Participants who travel outside the country without the proper paperwork are no longer covered by the program, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website. "Being released is an indescribable feeling," Saavedra Roman said via a spokesman. "I cried and hugged my husband and never wanted to let go. I am thankful and grateful for the amazing people that came to fight for me, and it fills my heart." Saavedra Roman, 28, was detained as Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it was investigating her status. During her detention, multiple high-profile figures spoke out on her behalf, including a Friday tweet from Hillary Clinton. David Watkins, Roman’s husband, learned about his wife's detention in a text message, the Washington Post reports: “I’m being detained, please call the lawyer.” “I think my wife is going to have PTSD for a long, long time,” Watkins told the newspaper in an interview. While Roman was detained, Watkins could only visit her once per week and could only see her through thick glass, he said. Saavedra Roman is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge in April. About 3.6 million undocumented immigrants brought to the country before their 18th birthday are enrolled in the Obama-era DACA program. Collectively, they're referred to as "Dreamers," named after a bill that's failed to pass Congress since it was first introduced in 2001. After passing security background checks and proving they were either in school, employed or serving in the military, DACA recipients were granted work permits and two-year reprieves from deportation that could be renewed. Trump has tried to end DACA; that is being appealed. Contributing: Alan Gomez and David Jackson, USA TODAY; The Associated Press<doc-sep>AUSTIN, Texas — A Mesa Airlines flight attendant, who as a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipient is barred from traveling outside the United States under the Trump administration's rules, was released from immigration detention Friday after being taken into custody when she returned to the U.S. on a flight from Mexico that she had worked. Selene Saavedra Roman, 28, who works for the regional airline based in Phoenix, walked out of the immigration facility Friday evening dragging her Mesa-issued flight bags, according to a representative for the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA who went to meet her and her attorney. She had been held for more than a month. "Being released is an incredible feeling. I cried and hugged my husband and never wanted to let go," Saavedra Roman said in a statement sent by her attorney Belinda Arroyo to NBC News. "I am thankful and grateful for the amazing people that came to fight for me, and it fills my heart. Thank you everyone that has supported. I am just so happy to have my freedom back." Mesa erroneously reassured Roman that she could fly to Mexico. But she was taken into custody Feb. 12, upon landing at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston and placed in immigration detention in Conroe, Texas, Arroyo told NBC News. Shortly after NBC News reported Saavedra Roman’s detention, news came of her pending release. Her husband, David Watkins, said in a phone call with reporters that Saavedra Roman had contacted him Friday afternoon as news of her detention spread. “I got the call. She was crying and she said, ‘Please come get me. They are going to release me,'" Watkins said. He was still on his way to pick her up when she was released. Saavedra Roman's detention was first reported by The Points Guy travel site. Originally from Peru, Saavedra Roman is enrolled in DACA, the Obama administration program that allows her to remain legally in the country and work. “We are deeply sorry Selene and her husband have had to endure this situation. It is patently unfair for someone to be detained for six weeks over something that is nothing more than an administrative error and a misunderstanding,” Mesa Chairman and CEO Jonathan Ornstein said. "We are doing everything in our power to ask the administration to release Selene, and drop all charges stemming from this horrible situation." Saavedra Roman is married to a U.S. citizen and is in the process of applying for legal residency status, but Arroyo said the federal government had threatened to revoke her DACA status while she was in custody. Under the Obama administration, DACA recipients could apply to travel outside the country. But when President Donald Trump ended the program, such travel was canceled. While court injunctions have prevented the Trump administration from ending DACA for now, the ban on its recipients traveling outside the United States has not been lifted. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it cannot comment on specific cases and cited its January 2018 memo that states that it will not accept or approve "advance parole" requests from DACA recipients. Advance parole is the permission that DACA recipients must get to travel outside the country. Saavedra Roman has had DACA since 2012, when it first became available to young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children and who met certain criteria. In a statement issued Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is holding Saavedra Roman, verified her arrest and said she was "processed" as a refused crew member, which refers to members of airlines and ship crews who do not have proper documentation to enter the country when they arrive at ports and airports. Selene Saavedra Roman is a DREAMer with approved status, no criminal history, and simply doing her job as a certified U.S. Flight Attendant. But she was detained by ICE and has been held for over a month with no end in sight. #FreeSelene Sign the petition: https://t.co/SDwVnbBAnv pic.twitter.com/D4oqiOmaFF — Sara Nelson (@FlyingWithSara) March 22, 2019 Saavedra Roman had told the airline when she was hired about her DACA status, Arroyo said. When she was assigned the Mexico flight, she exchanged several emails with her employer questioning whether she could work the flight because of her status, her attorney added. The airline told her it was permissible, Arroyo said. Hired in January, Saavedra Roman was still on probation with her employer. She was concerned about losing her job if she rejected the assignment, her attorney said. Arroyo said her client has provided her with emails of her conversations with her supervisors. “I can’t believe this case has gone on as it has. I thought, 'When they see she has DACA status, that it was a mistake, they are going to parole her and let her out,'" Arroyo said. Watkins said his wife had put Mexico and Canada on her “no fly” list “very intentionally” when she was hired by Mesa Airlines. Watkins said he did not know his wife had been sent to Mexico until she was back on the ground and texted him that she landed in Houston and had returned from Mexico. In the next text, she told him she was being detained and asked him to contact her lawyer, he said. “It has been absolutely terrible,” Watkins said. “Sometimes you have a nightmare and when you wake up you say, ‘Okay the nightmare is over.’ When I go to sleep, I have nightmares. When I wake up, I’m still stuck in the nightmare.” Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, said it is common for flight attendants to request and be excluded from certain flights. For example, some countries won't accept certain passports, and others won't accept someone with a drunk driving conviction on their record. Some airlines don't require a U.S. passport because they fly only domestically. The flight attendants association launched a petition with MoveOn.org that calls on the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to drop all charges and release Saavedra Roman. It had more than 6,000 signatures of the 7,500 the group is attempting to collect. Nelson said the association also is organizing a blitz of lawmakers on Capitol Hill and is reaching out to committees that oversee immigration, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and others, including Saavedra Roman's local congressman, Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas, about her case. "She was a brand-new flight attendant. She asked her company for guidance and raised concerns. This was an administrative error, and justice takes into consideration the realities of the situation," Nelson said. "There is no one looking at this with a reasonable lens." Watkins said that when his wife was detained, they usually spoke by phone twice a day, in the morning and at night. He was allowed to see her for one hour, once a week “through two-inches of glass. No contact allowed.” His wife is a graduate of Texas A&M, like Watkins, and she has no criminal history. They were friends for several years before they married in April 2017. She arrived in the U.S. at age 3, the flight attendants association said in its petition. “I told her, I really hope we don’t spend our anniversary with you in prison,” Watkins told NBC News. Saavedra Roman had worked as a pre-kindergarten and kindergarten teacher, but after the two traveled around the United States on their honeymoon, Watkins said he suggested she become a flight attendant. He said he thought she had the personality for it because she is always uplifting, smiling and helping people. They chose a regional airline so she could avoid international travel. “I proposed the idea,” Watkins said. “I’m kicking myself for it now.”<doc-sep>
Associated Press HOUSTON — A flight attendant who traveled to Mexico for work while enrolled in a program for immigrants brought to the United States as children was detained on her way back by U.S. immigration authorities but said Friday she was being released, her attorney said. Selene Saavedra Roman, a 28-year-old originally from Peru who is married to an American citizen, was assigned an international flight and raised concerns about whether she could go because of her immigration status, said Belinda Arroyo, her lawyer. Mesa Airlines mistakenly assured her she would be fine, but Saavedra Roman was stopped by U.S. authorities on her return to Houston Feb. 12 and sent to an immigration detention facility, Arroyo said. She has been detained ever since. But soon after her husband, Arroyo, the airline and flight attendants' association publicly demanded her release, Saavedra Roman called to tell him she was getting out. "She was crying and she said, 'Please come get me,' " her husband, David Watkins, told reporters. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency was looking into her status at a Texas detention facility. Earlier, the agency said Saavedra Roman didn't have a valid document to enter the country and was being detained while going through immigration court proceedings. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — the agency tasked with overseeing the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA — declined to discuss the case. But the agency says on its website that those who travel outside the country without a special document allowing them to do so are no longer covered by the program. The agency no longer issues the document to the program's enrollees, according to the website. The Trump administration sought to end the Obama-era program but was blocked by litigation. New applications have been halted, but renewals continue for hundreds of thousands of immigrants already enrolled. In a joint statement with the Association of Flight Attendants, Mesa chief executive Jonathan Ornstein apologized to Saavedra Roman and asked U.S. authorities to release her, arguing it was unfair to continually detain someone "over something that is nothing more than an administrative error and a misunderstanding." "She should have never been advised that she could travel," Arroyo said. "It was a big mistake." Saavedra Roman — who is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge in April — was brought to the country as a young child and attended Texas A&M University, where she met her husband. Watkins said he wasn't initially worried about her assignment because they already obtained approval from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to apply for her green card as the wife of an American citizen. She has no criminal record and has long paid her taxes, he said, and she checked with her employer before the trip. Then she was detained. He could only visit her once a week, and then, he could only see her through thick glass. She sounded hopeless, he said. "I told her, 'Even if you get deported to Peru, I'll just go with you,' " he said to reporters. "Regardless of whatever happens in the future, I am not giving up. I am going to keep fighting."