On October 27, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Durango seized Fernando Jaramillo Solando, his 12-year-old daughter and his 15-year-old son, as Fernando was taking his children to school. It turned out ICE agents had mistaken the father for someone else, but arrested and detained all three family members anyway, without warrants.
The Jaramillo-Solando family had fled Columbia, lived in the U.S. for 18 months and the entire family currently has an ongoing asylum case, which means they have a legal right in be in the country. The family sought asylum in the U.S. after the mother had been tortured in Colombia and her previous husband was assassinated. None of the family members have a criminal record, and they have complied with all immigration reporting requirements. The children’s mother is the primary applicant on the asylum case. The mother was not detained.
Jaramillo-Solano’s wife told her attorney, Carly Hamilton, that ICE agents had beaten her husband and children and kept them in a dungeon-like room in Durango, where the children had to share a urinal with their father. Estella Patiño, the mother of the family, said at a Durango city council meeting that when ICE agents arrested the father and two children, at first the 12-year-old daughter was separated from her father and brother and one of the ICE agents touched her inappropriately. After the 15 year old brother saw what was happening and told the agent to stop, he was beaten.
ICE kept the family in a windowless room in the Durango facility for 36 hours and gave them only potato chips and water to eat, according to immigration advocates.
After the mistaken arrest, about 100 peaceful demonstrators gathered outside the Durango ICE facility to protest and try to keep the detained family members from being separated from the mother and sent away. ICE agents responded by shooting rubber bullets into the crowd and pepper-spraying the protesters in the face (video) as they sat on the ground in front of the ICE facility with their arms linked together.
A case of mistaken identity
A senior ICE official in Denver, Gregory Davies, testified that the seizure of the family was a case of mistaken identity and the family was never the intended target. Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper advocated for the family and tried to demand answers from ICE about the situation. Senator Michael Bennet and CD-3 Rep. Jeff Hurd also joined in advocating for the family, but to no avail. Fernando and his children remain in ICE detention.
The Compañeros: Four Corners Four Corners Immigration Resource Center issued a statement on November 19 saying the detained family members are exhausted and traumatized — and the 12 year old girl is particularly traumatized — and they have signed a statement saying they will voluntarily return to Columbia “in hopes of regaining even a portion of the freedom that was taken from them.”
ICE has the ability to release the family at any time but so far has not.
This is so outrageous – where is our DOJ ??? Oh yeah, I forgot – they are corrupt too.