A New Fairfield man has been deported, leaving behind his wife and two kids.
Joel Colindres boarded a plane Wednesday and headed back to his native Guatemala.
Attorney Erin O’Neil-Baker filed an emergency request for a stay on Colindres’s behalf. But it was denied Tuesday.
“We tried to make our message clear that Mr. Colindres should stay here,” O’Neil-Baker said. “However, when you have a removal order and you have a system that will not recognize a person’s credible fear of returning to their country, then that person will be in danger of deportation.”
Colindres came to the United States illegally in 2004. He said he faced religious persecution and that three of his family members were killed by gangsters.
He was originally set to be deported last August, but was granted a temporary stay 90 minutes before his plane took off.
“Mr. Colindres-Guerra was removed today to Guatemala without incident,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
O’Neil-Baker said she has filed two more appeals on his behalf.
