On Friday, January 23, Mayra Vaca Latacunga, a single mother, said she had just dropped off her 6-year-old daughter Camila at school, and was on her way to get groceries, when immigration agents pulled her over.
Speaking in Spanish at her in-laws' apartment in Biddeford this week, Latacunga, originally from Ecuador, said the agents told her that she was in the country illegally.
"They didn't ask me anything," Latacunga said. "They said that if I didn't get out of the car, they were going to break the windows."
Latacunga said they placed her in handcuffs and drove her away.
"I begged them to help with my daughter, but they didn't listen," she said. "My daughter was left at school alone, and they didn't care at all."
Latacunga was detained during a federal immigration enforcement surge in Maine last month that the Department of Homeland Security said resulted in more than 200 arrests.
Latacunga said she was taken to a detention facility somewhere nearby, she's not exactly sure where. Then, she said that evening she was put on a van with several other detainees and driven to a larger ICE detention facility Burlington, Massachusetts.
There, Latacunga said she was given a few minutes to call her brother, who also lives in Biddeford.
"I asked for help," she said, "because they told me I was being deported back to my country."
Latacunga said she came to the U.S. about two years ago, fleeing an abusive partner and seeking a better future for your daughter.
After crossing the border, she said she encountered immigration agents and was given an immigration court date. She went first to New York, then to Maine, where she said she's pieced together a living through dishwashing and cleaning jobs. She couldn't afford a lawyer, and ended up missing her immigration court date because she had moved.
Latacunga said she didn't learn until after she was arrested last month that the government had issued a deportation order for her.
Her sister-in-law, Mari, said she alerted the school district after the arrest and arranged for Camila to be brought to her house.
"Camila was asking, 'Where is my mom? Why is my mom not coming? What happened to my mom?'" Mari said, in Spanish.
Mari, who asked to be identified only by her middle name out of concern for her own immigration status, said she couldn't bring herself to tell Camila what had happened.
"My husband had to explain to her that immigration had taken her mother," Mari recalled. "She cried a lot, she especially missed her mom at night."
Mari said she tried to find a lawyer, but they were all too expensive. She said community members have been dropping off groceries, because, like many other immigrant families in Maine, Mari and her husband are trying to stay home as much as possible.
"I also have a son," Mari said. "I'm scared that the same thing could happen to me, and I don't want to be separated from my son."
Then, five days after she was arrested, Mayra Latacunga said officials at the ICE detention facility in Massachusetts told her she was being released to be with her daughter.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson did not immediately respond a request for comment about why Latacunga was detained, why she was released, and what happens next in her case.
That evening, she reunited with her daughter Camila.
Curled up in Latacunga's lap, Camila said things are better now that they are together again.
"I missed her very very much," Camila said. "I was crying for my mom, that they would let her out."
Since her return, Latacunga said Camila gets scared whenever there's a knock at the door, thinking it could be immigration agents coming to take her away again.
And her ability to remain in the U.S. is still in question. She said she has an appointment at the ICE office in Scarborough next week, and isn't sure what to expect.
If she is sent back to Ecuador, Latacunga said what matters most is not being separated from Camila.
"All I ask is that they send me with my daughter," Latacunga said. "I'm not going to leave her here."
