A 51-year-old grandmother from Spring has been in ICE custody for over a month after a mail carrier accused her of assault. But Margarita Ávila’s family said she was just defending herself and does not deserve to be deported to her native country Belize.
Lisbet Ávila said she believes her mother was wrongfully arrested by Precinct 4 Constable deputies — an assertion Constable Mark Hermann denies — March 12, after she was accused of assaulting a postal worker. Margarita Ávila was taken into ICE custody the next day, and has since remained in ICE detention.
Ávila’s attorney, David Paz, said Ávila was handed an order of removal from the U.S. in 2001, but came back in 2012 seeking asylum to escape gang violence in her native country — and has been “floating” in the system without a court date since then. Ávila had remained compliant with her release conditions for over a decade as her court date was pending, but the accusation of assault has prompted the Department of Homeland Security to try to revoke her permission to stay in the U.S as she fights for asylum…